Pretty good article about the real root of gun violence.

[klinc]

It absolutely would be terrible. The war on guns and drugs give government purpose, and it gives our votes a voice. We must stand together, citizens and government, to fight against the guns and drugs, and be free from the clutches of the libertarians at last!

If a guy is able to commit murder why should he suddenly apply to a gun control law?

 

[HumblePie]

This does nothing to refute my basic point - if there were no guns, many fewer people would die as a result of any of the listed behaviors in your OP. I doubt you seriously believe otherwise.

There really isn't any way of clearly proving this, because the world is not a scientific lab in which we can establish control and test groups. Long-term crime statistics are affected by so many factors that even if we could establish a before-and-after set of numbers in a particular area it would be very difficult to tease out which effects were due to guns.

All of that being said, in my own city, Minneapolis, for example, the overwhelming majority of homicide deaths are gang-related shootings. I do not believe for one minute that if the same gangs were forced to resort to Sharks-vs-Jets fights with knives and bats that the murder rate would be anywhere near as high. Moreover, there would be few if any collateral-damage killings (a few sleeping children seem to be shot in North Minneapolis every year when gang members shoot up a rival gang house).

Now who is being fallacious with that bolded statement?

As you and both agreed on, violence, deaths, and crimes are way to complex to point to any one item and state changing that one variable will solve all the problems.

Would removal of all guns from law abiding citizens stop all gun deaths? No. Would it have a significant impact upon deaths in general due to violence? Maybe and maybe not.

Oh and Dcal, you are still wrong. You said suicides are more than twice all the other gun related deaths combined. 55% which was 2005 numbers show you wrong. Also, with crimes the way they are, I still wonder how many criminal deaths get ruled too easily as suicides when they are not. Police have come a long way in forensics, but suicides can still be "faked." How many? Certainly not a whole lot, but I wouldn't think 3-10% of suicides being misclassified isn't out the ballpark. Once a death is ruled a suicide it is rarely looked over criminally unless there is a major outside force with plenty of money and political backing to do a private investigation. Which has happened before and found suicide cases in the past misclassified.

Sorry about the tangent there. The point with the suicides I was making is that while America has a propensity to use firearms for suicides, the removal of firearms does not guarantee that suicide rates would decline. It may initially and I would be surprised if it did not. However, I also believe it to be disingenuous to think that measure would keep suicide mortality rates low forever. Again, I point to other countries such as Japan. They have very low gun ownership and some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. They also have very high suicide rates. Those with suicide idealization usually commit successful suicides there despite rarely ever using a gun to do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

Infact, many countries with very strict laws against gun ownership have very high suicide mortality rates. South Korea, China, Japan, Brazil, and what not all have higher rates than the US. Damn near all 33 countries that routinely have higher suicide rates than the US have very strict gun control laws.

So would removal of guns stop suicides in general in the US? Looking at world averages, historical data of gun ownership in the US versus suicide rates, and other factors I would give that answer as a definitive no. I do think it would cause a small dip for sure for a short period of time, but I doubt it would remain so. There are far too many factors that bring about why people commit suicide and pointing to people owning guns being the reason that suicide rates occur in this country is laudable.

As for other forms of violent deaths caused by guns... removal of firearms from law abiding citizens wouldn't change those at all. It hasn't stopped murder rates or violent crimes in other countries with strict gun control laws. Even after decades or even centuries of such measures.

 

[Tom]

For me the tie-in between suicide and gun control is tangental in that doing a better job identifying and helping people with mental health issues would probably reduce the rate of suicide and also would make it easier to identify people who shouldn't be buying firearms because of mental health issues.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Now who is being fallacious with that bolded statement?

As you and both agreed on, violence, deaths, and crimes are way to complex to point to any one item and state changing that one variable will solve all the problems.

Would removal of all guns from law abiding citizens stop all gun deaths? No. Would it have a significant impact upon deaths in general due to violence? Maybe and maybe not.

Oh and Dcal, you are still wrong. You said suicides are more than twice all the other gun related deaths combined. 55% which was 2005 numbers show you wrong. Also, with crimes the way they are, I still wonder how many criminal deaths get ruled too easily as suicides when they are not. Police have come a long way in forensics, but suicides can still be "faked." How many? Certainly not a whole lot, but I wouldn't think 3-10% of suicides being misclassified isn't out the ballpark. Once a death is ruled a suicide it is rarely looked over criminally unless there is a major outside force with plenty of money and political backing to do a private investigation. Which has happened before and found suicide cases in the past misclassified.

Sorry about the tangent there. The point with the suicides I was making is that while America has a propensity to use firearms for suicides, the removal of firearms does not guarantee that suicide rates would decline. It may initially and I would be surprised if it did not. However, I also believe it to be disingenuous to think that measure would keep suicide mortality rates low forever. Again, I point to other countries such as Japan. They have very low gun ownership and some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. They also have very high suicide rates. Those with suicide idealization usually commit successful suicides there despite rarely ever using a gun to do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

Infact, many countries with very strict laws against gun ownership have very high suicide mortality rates. South Korea, China, Japan, Brazil, and what not all have higher rates than the US. Damn near all 33 countries that routinely have higher suicide rates than the US have very strict gun control laws.

So would removal of guns stop suicides in general in the US? Looking at world averages, historical data of gun ownership in the US versus suicide rates, and other factors I would give that answer as a definitive no. I do think it would cause a small dip for sure for a short period of time, but I doubt it would remain so. There are far too many factors that bring about why people commit suicide and pointing to people owning guns being the reason that suicide rates occur in this country is laudable.

As for other forms of violent deaths caused by guns... removal of firearms from law abiding citizens wouldn't change those at all. It hasn't stopped murder rates or violent crimes in other countries with strict gun control laws. Even after decades or even centuries of such measures.

I want to be clear because I think we are talking about two different concepts.

I agree with you that making guns illegal would probably not dramatically reduce homicides/suicides. What I was saying was that in a theoretical universe in which no guns were in the hands of civilians (something I do not believe is realistically possible, at least in the United States, regardless of what Congress might do), these numbers would certainly decrease precipitously. I was not talking about taking them only out of the hands of "law-abiding citizens" (I use the quotation marks because obviously even previously law-abiding citizens sometimes murder their spouses, etc.).

 

[HumblePie]

I want to be clear because I think we are talking about two different concepts.

I agree with you that making guns illegal would probably not dramatically reduce homicides/suicides. What I was saying was that in a theoretical universe in which no guns were in the hands of civilians (something I do not believe is realistically possible, at least in the United States, regardless of what Congress might do), these numbers would certainly decrease precipitously. I was not talking about taking them only out of the hands of "law-abiding citizens" (I use the quotation marks because obviously even previously law-abiding citizens sometimes murder their spouses, etc.).

Lets be perfectly clear. Such a universe has existed. It's anytime on Earth before 700 AD.

At such a time, was the world free of murders/suicides? Do you think that such times in human history had lesser degrees of suicide/homicide rates? Because I can tell you the answer to that.

I'll go ahead an anticipate your next argument. That we as human society has been more "civilized" since that period in our history. That if today we were to somehow collect and destroy all guns and all information on how to create guns that we would all but eliminate suicides/homicides. I hate to burst your bubble, but human nature has never changed. We are civilized because those people with logic, reason, and moral guides have guns and defensive items to back them up. When you have a population that is generally "good" but now way to defend itself it only takes one bad guy (or a gang) with the muscle to lay waste to such a population. If you think I'm talking theoreticals here I'll burst your bubble again. Similar events are happening now in poorer places that are being controlled by tyrannical gangs of bad guys. Africa is a prime example. Heck, in India not long ago a group of madmen with guns held the entire city of Mumbai under siege. This is no little shanty village in Africa. This is a major metropolitan area that has a heavy gun ban and low gun ownership. Not even the police have much access to firearms there. They had to have outside help bring in firearms and the firepower to deal with 10 men with guns.

Without guns, our civilization would undoubtedly implode. Those humans with sick minds and strong arms would rule those that could no longer defend themselves. It has happened the ENTIRE BREADTH of human history. As Heinlein aptly put it, "An armed society is a polite society." When good people have the ability to defend themselves from the repudiations of bad guys, then society can become more civilized. Otherwise it all goes back down to the alpha males with the stronger sword or club arm holding hostage everyone else.

To even further illustrate that point, there ARE societies on this planet currently that have very low to zero gun ownership. They have no problem with borders as they are typically small island nations in the pacific. Many of the island nations of SE Asia have very little to zero firearms. Some of the nations do quite well as homogenous societies with very little violent crimes. Their suicide rates are about the same, or in some cases higher than the average, but some of the nations have massive problems with violent crimes and corruption given the fact they are homogenous contained nations. Lack of guns there has done nothing to curb murder and violent crimes there. Why is this so? Because islands are usually a nice microcosm of a human society with limited resources. Not enough to go around. When you don't have enough to go around, you leave people with little choice but to take what they can in whatever way that they can. Population pressure and high crime rates can be massive problems on island nations. More so when there is a total lack of guns that allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves.

So to answer your question again. No. I do not believe that if guns were somehow magically removed from any society or the world at large that it would some how reduce suicides/homicides. I can see where in some cases it may provide a temporary reduction, but in the long term it will ALWAYS end badly. I have history, human nature, and statistics on my side to affirm that conclusion. Not some touchy feely feel good emotional reaction that I used to reach such a conclusion as many of the anti gun people seem to use.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Lets be perfectly clear. Such a universe has existed. It's anytime on Earth before 700 AD.

At such a time, was the world free of murders/suicides? Do you think that such times in human history had lesser degrees of suicide/homicide rates? Because I can tell you the answer to that.

I'll go ahead an anticipate your next argument. That we as human society has been more "civilized" since that period in our history. That if today we were to somehow collect and destroy all guns and all information on how to create guns that we would all but eliminate suicides/homicides. I hate to burst your bubble, but human nature has never changed. We are civilized because those people with logic, reason, and moral guides have guns and defensive items to back them up. When you have a population that is generally "good" but now way to defend itself it only takes one bad guy (or a gang) with the muscle to lay waste to such a population. If you think I'm talking theoreticals here I'll burst your bubble again. Similar events are happening now in poorer places that are being controlled by tyrannical gangs of bad guys. Africa is a prime example. Heck, in India not long ago a group of madmen with guns held the entire city of Mumbai under siege. This is no little shanty village in Africa. This is a major metropolitan area that has a heavy gun ban and low gun ownership. Not even the police have much access to firearms there. They had to have outside help bring in firearms and the firepower to deal with 10 men with guns.

Without guns, our civilization would undoubtedly implode. Those humans with sick minds and strong arms would rule those that could no longer defend themselves. It has happened the ENTIRE BREADTH of human history. As Heinlein aptly put it, "An armed society is a polite society." When good people have the ability to defend themselves from the repudiations of bad guys, then society can become more civilized. Otherwise it all goes back down to the alpha males with the stronger sword or club arm holding hostage everyone else.

To even further illustrate that point, there ARE societies on this planet currently that have very low to zero gun ownership. They have no problem with borders as they are typically small island nations in the pacific. Many of the island nations of SE Asia have very little to zero firearms. Some of the nations do quite well as homogenous societies with very little violent crimes. Their suicide rates are about the same, or in some cases higher than the average, but some of the nations have massive problems with violent crimes and corruption given the fact they are homogenous contained nations. Lack of guns there has done nothing to curb murder and violent crimes there. Why is this so? Because islands are usually a nice microcosm of a human society with limited resources. Not enough to go around. When you don't have enough to go around, you leave people with little choice but to take what they can in whatever way that they can. Population pressure and high crime rates can be massive problems on island nations. More so when there is a total lack of guns that allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves.

So to answer your question again. No. I do not believe that if guns were somehow magically removed from any society or the world at large that it would some how reduce suicides/homicides. I can see where in some cases it may provide a temporary reduction, but in the long term it will ALWAYS end badly. I have history, human nature, and statistics on my side to affirm that conclusion. Not some touchy feely feel good emotional reaction that I used to reach such a conclusion as many of the anti gun people seem to use.

This is an exceptionally long-winded diatribe that, in my view, continues to defy reality and I categorically disagree with it. I think we will have to agree to disagree.

 

[HumblePie]

This is an exceptionally long-winded diatribe that, in my view, continues to defy reality and I categorically disagree with it. I think we will have to agree to disagree.

Just trying to denounce my well reasoned and logical argument as defiant to reality sure solidifies your position.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Just trying to denounce my well reasoned and logical argument as defiant to reality sure solidifies your position.

I find it neither well reasoned nor logical to compare what happened in the Middle Ages to what happens today, nor to compare isolated islands in the South Pacific to the United States. If Heinlein were 100% right, our society would be the politest and safest on Earth - it is far from that. I know you would rather keep fighting but that was not my intention - I simply disagree with you entirely and think your premise is nonsensical (just as you do mine).

In short, I absolutely agree that gun violence is caused by a multitude of factors that have nothing to do with guns, but it is also enabled by the ready access to firearms. Guns are more lethal than other readily-accessible tools of violence, and if there no guns among the civilian public there would be fewer fatalities IMO. It certainly would not eliminate violent crime by any means.

 

[HumblePie]

I find it neither well reasoned nor logical to compare what happened in the Middle Ages to what happens today, nor to compare isolated islands in the South Pacific to the United States. If Heinlein were 100% right, our society would be the politest and safest on Earth - it is far from that. I know you would rather keep fighting but that was not my intention - I simply disagree with you entirely and think your premise is nonsensical (just as you do mine).

In short, I absolutely agree that gun violence is caused by a multitude of factors that have nothing to do with guns, but it is also enabled by the ready access to firearms. Guns are more lethal than other readily-accessible tools of violence, and if there no guns among the civilian public there would be fewer fatalities IMO. It certainly would not eliminate violent crime by any means.

The reasoning part is that human nature never changes.

If I was to use Chicago, DC, and NYC as arguments for gun control laws that do not stop violence, as many gun advocates do, they are slapped back with "well because there is no real borders to enforce guns from getting into the hands of criminals."

So if one wants to continue that line of argument, then using countries that DO have good border enforcement show that such measures still do not work. There are some island nations that have very little crime and some that have tons of violent crime/murders despite absolute gun bans. What it boils down to is resources. Island nations that typically are good tourist hotspots that have a bunch of incoming cash to everyone on the island due to tourism rarely have high problems with violent crime. Although property crime can still be very high. This can be SE Pacific nations or the Carribean, or anywhere else. Those nation with strict gun control but very little resources for those living there tend to have massive problems with crimes and violence. Countries like Haiti have higher murder rates than the US and very low gun ownership. Very little of their murders are done with guns.

So if you don't want to cross compare the US to Island nations, it can easily be shown with cross comparisons between the island nations themselves. Isolating guns as a variable between multiple island nations does not have a significant impact upon murder or suicide.

And yes, comparing history to today is HOW WE DO NOT REPEAT HISTORY. Didn't your history teacher ever teach you that? That failing to learn from the mistakes of the past only allow them to repeated in the future?

Human societies have ONLY existed as polite societies throughout history when the good guys were able to trounce the bad guys for a society. So to speak. Typically in the past this was done with benevolent dictatorships/monarchs that held societies a bit more peaceful through use of arms. But with the advent of guns, the common man doesn't need to rely on government thugs to hold the peace however loosely it was held.

DVC, your denial of human nature, history, and current world situations is the true defiance of reality.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

The reasoning part is that human nature never changes.

If I was to use Chicago, DC, and NYC as arguments for gun control laws that do not stop violence, as many gun advocates do, they are slapped back with "well because there is no real borders to enforce guns from getting into the hands of criminals."

So if one wants to continue that line of argument, then using countries that DO have good border enforcement show that such measures still do not work. There are some island nations that have very little crime and some that have tons of violent crime/murders despite absolute gun bans. What it boils down to is resources. Island nations that typically are good tourist hotspots that have a bunch of incoming cash to everyone on the island due to tourism rarely have high problems with violent crime. Although property crime can still be very high. This can be SE Pacific nations or the Carribean, or anywhere else. Those nation with strict gun control but very little resources for those living there tend to have massive problems with crimes and violence. Countries like Haiti have higher murder rates than the US and very low gun ownership. Very little of their murders are done with guns.

So if you don't want to cross compare the US to Island nations, it can easily be shown with cross comparisons between the island nations themselves. Isolating guns as a variable between multiple island nations does not have a significant impact upon murder or suicide.

And yes, comparing history to today is HOW WE DO NOT REPEAT HISTORY. Didn't your history teacher ever teach you that? That failing to learn from the mistakes of the past only allow them to repeated in the future?

Human societies have ONLY existed as polite societies throughout history when the good guys were able to trounce the bad guys for a society. So to speak. Typically in the past this was done with benevolent dictatorships/monarchs that held societies a bit more peaceful through use of arms. But with the advent of guns, the common man doesn't need to rely on government thugs to hold the peace however loosely it was held.

DVC, your denial of human nature, history, and current world situations is the true defiance of reality.

Again, this is not (and can't be) an apples-to-apples comparison, because Haiti and other island nations have so little in common with the United States economically, culturally, educationally, etc. To me it boils down to this: the majority of murders and successful suicides in the United States are committed with guns. Of those murders, a high percentage are incident to gang violence or armed robbery, and are deaths which would be difficult or impossible to carry out in anything like the same quantity through the use of knives or other readily-accessible weapons. Obviously mass shootings like Sandy Hook or Aurora (or the one we had here, at Accent Signage, last September, which represented more than 10% of my city's homicides for the year) could not conceivably be as lethal through the use of readily-available weapons, were guns not available.

I'm not convinced this argument is worth even one tenth the time we have already dedicated to it, because we are talking about a strictly theoretical world that can never come true, but clearly we are on different philosophical planes and I'm not sure why we are wasting even one second trying to convince one another.

 

[HumblePie]

Again, this is not (and can't be) an apples-to-apples comparison, because Haiti and other island nations have so little in common with the United States economically, culturally, educationally, etc. To me it boils down to this: the majority of murders and successful suicides in the United States are committed with guns. Of those murders, a high percentage are incident to gang violence or armed robbery, and are deaths which would be difficult or impossible to carry out in anything like the same quantity through the use of knives or other readily-accessible weapons. Obviously mass shootings like Sandy Hook or Aurora (or the one we had here, at Accent Signage, last September, which represented more than 10% of my city's homicides for the year) could not conceivably be as lethal through the use of readily-available weapons, were guns not available.

I'm not convinced this argument is worth even one tenth the time we have already dedicated to it, because we are talking about a strictly theoretical world that can never come true, but clearly we are on different philosophical planes and I'm not sure why we are wasting even one second trying to convince one another.

Because McVeigh used a bomb to kill more and included 20 children for a mass killing. The argument is that the removal of gun just merely changes the weapons used. I point to other nations that may be culturally different, but at the heart of things is that violent crimes are usually all done with similar motives no matter what the society is.

The argument is that if you remove all guns from America somehow that a reduction in suicides and violent deaths would NOT be significantly impacted. It would more than likely make a noticeable temporary drop, but eventually that drop would go back up as those seeking to suicide themselves or commit murders will find other ways to complete such actions. I use real world examples of other nations and other times because it is relevant.

South Korea has very low levels of gun ownership and very high levels of suicide. Very high levels of successful suicide. They don't use guns for those suicides either. Does South Korea have a different culture to what brings about motivations for suicide that are different than the US? Sure do. To reduce suicides in South Korea one would not talk about stricter gun control laws there. Why? Because guns are not the problem when it comes to suicides. They don't use guns there for suicides. If they vast majority of suicides were done in South Korea using shoe laces, a country wide ban on shoe laces would be stupid. All one does is change the method of suicides to something else. To reduce suicides you go to the ROOT of the problem. What is the MOTIVATION for such an action? Why are people in South Korea motivated into completing more acts of suicides there? How do you curb the MOTIVATION? That is the real way to address a human problem. That is the entire point of the original OP and sustained arguments I have been doing.

Remove the motivation for actions humans take, not the tools used in the actions, to solve human behavior problems. It's like a dog that chews on your shoes too much. Do you stop wearing and owning shoes to stop the dog from chewing on them? No that would be stupid as the dog would just find something else to chew on. Instead you correct the behavior problem of why the dog is wanting to chew on your shoes. Is it bored? Teething problem? Whatever the motivation is for the undesired behavior you work a solution for THAT.

Human behavior in this regard is no different than a dog chewing on your shoes. You don't want humans killing themselves or others? Removing guns does not solve that problem any more than removing shoes from a household stops a dog from chewing on shit you don't want it to. Correct the motivations for undesirable behavior to correct the behavior.

 

[klinc]

I want to be clear because I think we are talking about two different concepts.

I agree with you that making guns illegal would probably not dramatically reduce homicides/suicides. What I was saying was that in a theoretical universe in which no guns were in the hands of civilians (something I do not believe is realistically possible, at least in the United States, regardless of what Congress might do), these numbers would certainly decrease precipitously. I was not talking about taking them only out of the hands of "law-abiding citizens" (I use the quotation marks because obviously even previously law-abiding citizens sometimes murder their spouses, etc.).

How would it reduce homicides? Do guns going to suddenly magically disappear? No If someone wants to get a gun he will get a gun legal or not. Only difference is his innocent law abiding victim do not have protection anymore so its fresh meat for meat grinder.

As for suicides. If someone wants to commit suicide they will commit it. With gun hang themselves or whatever. Guns won't do anything and it has been proven. In fact homicide rates went up in Washington when they had a gun law.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

How would it reduce homicides? Do guns going to suddenly magically disappear? No If someone wants to get a gun he will get a gun legal or not. Only difference is his innocent law abiding victim do not have protection anymore so its fresh meat for meat grinder.

As for suicides. If someone wants to commit suicide they will commit it. With gun hang themselves or whatever. Guns won't do anything and it has been proven. In fact homicide rates went up in Washington when they had a gun law.

You have obviously not read the very post you quoted, so I see no need to fully respond to this.

 

[DCal430]

Now who is being fallacious with that bolded statement?

As you and both agreed on, violence, deaths, and crimes are way to complex to point to any one item and state changing that one variable will solve all the problems.

Would removal of all guns from law abiding citizens stop all gun deaths? No. Would it have a significant impact upon deaths in general due to violence? Maybe and maybe not.

Oh and Dcal, you are still wrong. You said suicides are more than twice all the other gun related deaths combined. 55% which was 2005 numbers show you wrong. Also, with crimes the way they are, I still wonder how many criminal deaths get ruled too easily as suicides when they are not. Police have come a long way in forensics, but suicides can still be "faked." How many? Certainly not a whole lot, but I wouldn't think 3-10% of suicides being misclassified isn't out the ballpark. Once a death is ruled a suicide it is rarely looked over criminally unless there is a major outside force with plenty of money and political backing to do a private investigation. Which has happened before and found suicide cases in the past misclassified.

Sorry about the tangent there. The point with the suicides I was making is that while America has a propensity to use firearms for suicides, the removal of firearms does not guarantee that suicide rates would decline. It may initially and I would be surprised if it did not. However, I also believe it to be disingenuous to think that measure would keep suicide mortality rates low forever. Again, I point to other countries such as Japan. They have very low gun ownership and some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. They also have very high suicide rates. Those with suicide idealization usually commit successful suicides there despite rarely ever using a gun to do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

Infact, many countries with very strict laws against gun ownership have very high suicide mortality rates. South Korea, China, Japan, Brazil, and what not all have higher rates than the US. Damn near all 33 countries that routinely have higher suicide rates than the US have very strict gun control laws.

So would removal of guns stop suicides in general in the US? Looking at world averages, historical data of gun ownership in the US versus suicide rates, and other factors I would give that answer as a definitive no. I do think it would cause a small dip for sure for a short period of time, but I doubt it would remain so. There are far too many factors that bring about why people commit suicide and pointing to people owning guns being the reason that suicide rates occur in this country is laudable.

As for other forms of violent deaths caused by guns... removal of firearms from law abiding citizens wouldn't change those at all. It hasn't stopped murder rates or violent crimes in other countries with strict gun control laws. Even after decades or even centuries of such measures.

I never said more than twice, I said almost twice. There are around 19500 firearm suicides per year vs 11,000 firearm homicides, 19500 is close to twice 11000.