The US Politics |OT|

[jason1637]

the-pi-guy said:

jason1637 said:

1. Guns are not the reason people want to commit sucide.

No one said that they were.  

jason1637 said:

1.If you take away the guns their emotions that make them want to end their lives are still there and since most suicides are not done with firearms these people would just find another way to commit suicides.

The two counterpoints:

-Guns are used so often because they are fast and reliable.  So people are more likely to use them.

-Guns are reliable.  Basically if people are more likely to use other methods, it is more likely they can be saved.  

jason1637 said:

If we take the UK for an example. In 1996/1997 they passed some gun control laws but sucide rate the following years had increased. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_Kingdom (you can see the chart when you click on the suicide rates thing under statistics). And Japan si another example of a country with strict gun laws and a high suicide rates. Guns are just one means people use to commit suicide. Take that away people will just find other ways.

One example doesn't make for a trend.  The number of suicides per year can fluctuate due to all kinds of reasons.  

Besides that, pointing to one example of gun control doesn't mean much, because not all gun controls laws are equal.  

jason1637 said:

2. You claimed that "Often it is because there either was a firearm present or they believed a firearm to be present." and I've never seen evidence of this that's why I asked for a source. The source you provided does not say anything about this.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938170/us-police-shootings-gun-violence-homicides

"One explanation for the disparity is that murder and gun violence are more common in the US, putting police in more situations in which the use of force is necessary"

"The research bears this out: More guns lead to more gun violence. And for police in particular, one study in the American Journal of Public Health found that every 10 percent increase in firearm ownership correlated with 10 additional officers killed at the state level over a 15-year period."

jason1637 said:

3. There will always be accidents for a lot of things. That's just people being careless. The primary focus of gun control laws are to prevent violent gun crimes so adding accidents to the equation isnt fair because they will still happen.

There is always a way to prevent carelessness.  

That could mean designing safer guns (that could be impossible for children to use), requiring higher standards for guns being locked up (that could mean requiring police to check houses to see how guns are stored), requiring some kind of training.  

jason1637 said:

4. The guy wanted to show that the issue of gun control is not as big as the media and some politicians make it to be. Yeah some of his evidence was a bit misleading because he said himself that he was not able to find full info and had to use info form past years. But even with more accurate stats you provided earlier the gun problem is not as big as the media makes it out to be,

How big does an issue need to be, to be worth the attention?  

1. The point I was making was that since Guns don't make people want to comitt sucide taking them alway does not solve that issue. Yeah guns are reliable but there are other reliable ways people can commit suicide. I used the example of the UK gun control to show that gun control does not necessarily lead to lower sucide rates.

2. That's an interesting correlation. But still does not prove that those killed were doing anything wrong. If a police officer shot someone who had a gun but the person shot wasnt doing anything criminal then the issue is that the officers lack training not that the victim had a gun.

3. Lock up laws are in some parts of the country but I agree that they should be nationwide. But letting cops search peoples homes would be a nightmare.

4.I'm not saying that it isn't worth attention just that the amount of attention it gets by the media should eb given to bigger issues that affect more people.