A Sane Discussion About Gun Violence

[ke7ejx]

Undoubtedly this is true. What Adrift seems to be discussing is the person who is not quite as determined and might make an abortive attempt or a half-serious attempt.

I would like to see him respond to MM's claim that suicides did not drop following gun law changes in Australia, however.

Agreed. Personally, I think hanging would be a horrible way to go. That is such a long and excruciating death.

[ke7ejx]

I only did it because I know and trust the judge, the police officer involved, the specific counselor at MHMR, and we conspired together, but, yes, he was committed to a hospital where he spent a week getting his meds adjusted, and managed to get rid of all the imaginary cars and people that were chasing him.

I picked him up from the hospital, and he was a different man. We helped him find a job, a place to live, and he was doing great.

Thanks be to God.

[Adrift]

Undoubtedly this is true. What Adrift seems to be discussing is the person who is not quite as determined and might make an abortive attempt or a half-serious attempt.

I would like to see him respond to MM's claim that suicides did not drop following gun law changes in Australia, however.

I already did in post #398.

[Cow Poke]

Undoubtedly this is true. What Adrift seems to be discussing is the person who is not quite as determined and might make an abortive attempt or a half-serious attempt.

I know it was ages ago, but when I was a cop, the prevailing theory was that those who were determined to die just did it. Those who wanted to be "rescued" always seemed to manage to be in their car with the engine running in the garage with the door closed - about the time their spouse would come home from work, or in some other manner "just happen" to be found 'attempting' suicide. The bottle of sleeping pills, the slitting wrists...

I know we've whipped this horse endlessly, but is there any evidence that somebody using a gun as their weapon of choice hasn't given it lots of thought? I mean... if they successfully end their life, one of the tragedies is there's nobody to tell us the "why".

[Cow Poke]

Thanks be to God.

I'm cautiously optimistic - he had done some meth, and that's one of the hardest demons to dispatch.

[KingsGambit]

Honestly I could never imagine committing suicide. I've been through serious depression on a number of occasions but never remotely considered it, not even once. However, short drop hanging sounds like one of the worst possible ways to go.

[Mountain Man]

Yeah, that's unfortunate. Thankfully they're still much lower than their 1997 rate, which saw 14.7 suicides per 100,000 people. According to data compiled by the World Health Organization in 2000 the rate was at 12.5 per 100,000; By 2015 that number dropped to 10.5 per 100,000, and it looks like there was a bump up to 11.7 per 100,000 in 2016. So, yeah, not great, but still lower than before the ban. The US on the other hand isn't so fortunate. The data compiles by the World Health Organization shows that in 2000 our rate was at 9.7 per 100,000, and by 2015 that rose to 12.6 per 100,000.

According to Lifeline, "The overall suicide rate in 2015 was 12.6 per 100,000 in Australia. This is the highest rate in 10-plus years," and it "remains the leading cause of death for Australians aged between 15 and 44." And this report shows what is essentially a flatline in suicide rates from 1989 to 2014 with the highest fluctuation in males and almost no fluctuation in females.

As for the WHO, their numbers are traditionally driven more by an agenda than by the facts, so I don't find them particularly trustworthy.

At any rate, this is all beside the point. Like I said before, people committing suicide with a gun isn't the problem, it's the fact that people are committing suicide, period. Take away the guns, and suicide rates are virtually unchanged.

[Adrift]

According to Lifeline, "The overall suicide rate in 2015 was 12.6 per 100,000 in Australia. This is the highest rate in 10-plus years,"

This link doesn't really provide much data. Assuming this is true, this might be related to the bump up reported in 2016 that I mentioned.

and it "remains the leading cause of death for Australians aged between 15 and 44."

No one is arguing that the gun ban eliminated suicide, or that suicide isn't still an issue. The argument is that removing guns decreases the number successful suicide attempts.

And this report shows what is essentially a flatline in suicide rates from 1989 to 2014 with the highest fluctuation in males and almost no fluctuation in females.

It isn't essentially flat. Your link shows a significant decline in suicide among males, while female numbers are relatively flat, suicides among them were also much lower than males to begin with.

As for the WHO, their numbers are traditionally driven more by an agenda than by the facts, so I don't find them particularly trustworthy.

It looked to me like normal data mapping. They have homicide rates for dozens of nations.

At any rate, this is all beside the point. Like I said before, people committing suicide with a gun isn't the problem, it's the fact that people are committing suicide, period. Take away the guns, and suicide rates are virtually unchanged.

I'm totally for a multi-pronged solution that includes both cause and effect; That prevents suicide attempts in the first place as well as removing the most lethal tool commonly used in suicides. A balanced study on Australia's ban done in 2016 pointed out that there was a significant decrease in both homicides and suicides following the gun ban in 1996, though it concludes, with caution, that they can't definitively trace the cause to the ban. Still, I think it's meaningful (as, apparently, does the paper's author),

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 June 2016

Research published in the prestigious American journal JAMA demonstrates fears that gun suicides would merely be replaced by other methods have proved misguided, with an initial spike in suicide deaths immediately following the buyback followed by a steady downward trend.

The rate of homicide deaths, which were already in decline, declined further.

University of Sydney Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman, who was the lead author of the paper, said while there had been 13 mass killings - defined as five or more victims - between 1979 and 1996, there had been none since.

"But far more significant in terms of lives that are lost are the day-to-day, very unspectacular killings where an individual shoots another individual or maybe two, and by far and away the biggest category of gun deaths are suicides," Professor Chapman said.

"We showed that if you put those killings together, they were going down before the Port Arthur massacre but they went down even faster after the law reforms and that's a really big story."

Then Prime Minister John Howard introduced gun law reform following the murder of 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. They included a ban on rapid-fire long guns and the compulsory buyback of prohibited weapons.

The researchers compared rates of intentional deaths in the 17 years prior to the 1996 laws to the 17 years afterwards, building on research they did at the 10-year anniversary.

Total suicides, including those involving firearms, increased by a mean 1 per cent per year before 1996, and then decreased by a mean 1.5 per cent per year after the gun laws were introduced.

Homicides and suicides that did not involve firearms were increasing by 2.1 per cent per year before gun reform, but the trend reversed and they began to decline by 1.4 per cent per year thereafter.

The report said this could be explained by a change towards the use of less fatal methods of suicide, improved trauma care in hospitals and quicker emergency responses because more people had mobile phones.

But it warned that the study was observational in nature and did not prove that the change in firearm deaths were attributable to the gun laws, particularly because the decline in total non-firearm suicide and homicide deaths was of a greater magnitude than gun deaths.

https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/th...22-gpp4wp.html

© Copyright Original Source

Ultimately this is all academic. As I've previously mentioned, I'm certain there will eventually be stronger gun restriction in the US. I just hope that we don't lose many more souls before it happens.

[Littlejoe]

I just posted this over in the Florida School Shooting thread in response to Psychic Missles' request:

Well, at least according to Wikipedia...(yeah I know) the US is 11th on the list of gun related deaths...yet every single country ahead of them has a drastically lower guns per capita. Jamaica has some of the strictest gun laws in the world and it's gun related death rate is 3 times that in the US.

(Click on the chart to make it big enough to actually read)

gun deaths.JPG


Meanwhile, gun deaths aren't even counted the same country to country. In this report to the U.K. Parliament, we find that since 1967, England and Wales do not count gun deaths which do not result in a conviction...that rules out all suicides, deaths by Police and all unsolved homicides in their homicide rates.

(Part II) 35. Homicide statistics too vary widely. In some developing countries, the statistics are known to be far from complete. Figures for crimes labelled as homicide in various countries are simply not comparable. Since 1967, homicide figures for England and Wales have been adjusted to exclude any cases which do not result in conviction, or where the person is not prosecuted on grounds of self defence or otherwise. This reduces the apparent number of homicides by between 13 per cent and 15 per cent. The adjustment is made only in respect of figures shown in one part of the Annual Criminal Statistics. In another part relating to the use of firearms, no adjustment is made. A table of the number of homicides in which firearms were used in England and Wales will therefore differ according to which section of the annual statistics was used as its base. Similarly in statistics relating to the use of firearms, a homicide will be recorded where the firearm was used as a blunt instrument, but in the specific homicide statistics, that case will be shown under "blunt instrument"

Finally, we can see from these chart that the ban on firearms did not reduce the homicide rate at all, it's just now stabilizing around it's the same number as the pre-ban rate:
UK homicides.JPG

And 12 years after the ban, they actually increased for 12 years. The gun death rates finally have fallen below the pre-ban numbers...that's a long time for correlation to explain...

UK gun deaths.JPG

[MaxVel]

Perhaps some of the American posters here could clarify something for me : I read somewhere that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. IOW it doesn't confer that right.

Is this correct?

[Mountain Man]

It isn't essentially flat. Your link shows a significant decline in suicide among males, while female numbers are relatively flat, suicides among them were also much lower than males to begin with.

It rose and fell over a two-decade period ending up essentially where it started making the median a flat line.

It looked to me like normal data mapping. They have homicide rates for dozens of nations.

Different countries have different standards of reporting which I've never seen the WHO take into account.

As for homicide rates, the US saw a similar reduction to Australia's over the same period since the ban despite the US experiencing a sharp increase in gun sales over the same period. Again, guns aren't the problem.

[KingsGambit]

Perhaps some of the American posters here could clarify something for me : I read somewhere that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. IOW it doesn't confer that right.

Is this correct?

The Supreme Court did not actually affirm an interpretation of the Second Amendment for individual firearm ownership apart from the purpose of militias until 2008, but they then interpreted it to mean what most people casually assume in DC v. Heller.

[Adrift]

It rose and fell over a two-decade period ending up essentially where it started making the median a flat line.

Are we looking at the same graph? It's significantly lower,

chart.jpg

Also, I've provided plenty of data from other sources that there was, in fact, a sharp decline in suicides after the ban.

Different countries have different standards of reporting which I've never seen the WHO take into account.

Hmm. Unless you can give me a better reason than that, I don't have any reason to doubt the WHO's take on the subject.

As for homicide rates, the US saw a similar reduction to Australia's over the same period since the ban despite the US experiencing a sharp increase in gun sales over the same period. Again, guns aren't the problem.

Yes, we've gone over this I think about 6 or 7 times now. This also coincides with stricter gun legislation, and many of those gun sales were from repeat owners during the various legislation scares after each major mass shooting.

[seer]

The Supreme Court did not actually affirm an interpretation of the Second Amendment for individual firearm ownership apart from the purpose of militias until 2008, but they then interpreted it to mean what most people casually assume in DC v. Heller.

Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) - This second post-Civil War era case related to the meaning of the Second Amendment rights relating to militias and individuals. The court ruled the Second Amendment right was a right of individuals, not militias, and was not a right to form or belong to a militia, but related to an individual right to bear arms for the good of the United States, who could serve as members of a militia upon being called up by the Government in time of collective need. In essence, it declared, although individuals have the right to keep and bear arms, a state law prohibiting common citizens from forming personal military organizations, and drilling or parading, is still constitutional because prohibiting such personal military formations and parades does not limit a personal right to keep and bear arms:

"We think it clear that there are no sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_..._and_bear_arms

In the United States, which has an English common law tradition, a longstanding right to keep and bear arms was recognized prior to the creation of a written national constitution.[18] Today, the right is specifically protected by the US Constitution and many state constitutions,[19] which grant a right to own arms for individual use and to bear these same arms both for personal protection and for use in a militia.[20] The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.[21]

Convicted felons, persons adjudicated as mentally ill, and some others are prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition in the US. In most states, residents may carry a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed or open manner on one's person or in proximity, but that is restricted by some states and many cities. Some jurisdictions require a permit for concealed carry, but most jurisdictions do not require a permit for open carry, if it is allowed. Some states and localities require licenses to own or purchase guns and ammunition, as detailed in a summary of gun laws in the United States. Other states do not require such formalities or even allow the ownership and use of weapons taxed by the NFA.

Early legal wording can be found in the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. Following the American Revolution, one of the first legislative acts undertaken by each of the newly independent states was to adopt a reception statute that gave legal effect to the existing body of English common law to the extent that American legislation or the Constitution had not explicitly rejected it.[22] Many English common-law traditions, such as the right to keep and bear arms, habeas corpus, jury trials, and various other civil liberties, were enumerated in the US Constitution. Significant principles of English common law prior to 1776 remain in effect in many jurisdictions in the United States. The common law of England is still the rule of decision, except if it conflicts with the US Constitution, state constitutions, or acts of Congress or state legislatures, in every state except Louisiana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_...#United_States

[Roy]

Very true. According to the Washington Post, a majority of mass shootings begin with the theft of an otherwise legally obtained gun. About 79% to be exact.

That's all gun crimes, not mass shootings.