Guns are now killing as many people as cars in the U.S
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Here's the operative phrase: "The convergence of the trend lines above is driven primarily by a sharp drop in the rate of motor vehicle fatalities since 1950."
It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years, yet there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a firearm.
> It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years, yet there's no progress in gun violence.
> yet there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a firearm.
The article doesn't conflate anything; it makes a very interesting and important comparison: vehicle deaths (which have been extensively studied for decades, with much federal regulation and other pressure to improve safety) are now on par with gun deaths (which had been banned from federal research for nearly two decades).
> It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years
Wouldn't it be nice if fewer people were dying from guns as well?
Further, the data is misleading as well. Suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths are three different things.
On top of that, this data is collected across the US...meaning that it includes both areas where gun laws are loose, and areas where gun laws are strict. This means that the data tells us nothing about whether tougher laws would help or hurt the state of gun-related death, for reasons that should be obvious to anybody who's completed a high school science class.
In terms of someone being killed by a gun, how so exactly?
You haven't made any arguments in support of this claim.
> Further, the data is misleading as well. Suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths are three different things.
Yes, what is your point?
> This means that the data tells us nothing about whether tougher laws would help or hurt the state of gun-related death
Rates of gun ownership is tightly-correlated with rates of gun-related deaths, at whatever scale you cut it. This also holds true for gun suicides:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/spr08gunprevalence...
Suicides, homicides, and accidents all have different motives and circumstances. Further, suicides and homicides are often driven by mental illness, while accidemts are driven by not following precautions. They require different strategies to fix each problem, because they are three different problems.
Correlation between the existence of firearms and the presence of fireaems deaths is actually kind of obvious people cannot die of something that has not been invented yet. The real question is causality: Why do people get shot and killed? This is why the data in this article is useless--there is no control group. It does not show whether gun deaths are more frequent where firearms are legal, or more common where they have been outlawed. It merely shows that they exist.
Show me data that indicates--beyond a shadow of a doubt--that states with looser gun laws have more firearms homicides than states with stricter gun laws. Then you will have won.
You can't technically downvote, but you can morally do so by clicking 'flag'. Many of your fellow users did so, and your desired effect would have happened a bit sooner had you joined them.
Making a fine substantive counterpoint, as you did, is excellent too!
As far as HN goes, the limits of discussion are primarily about what's on-topic, but also about what the community is capable of discussing without rupturing blood vessels or having fist fights break out in Parliament.
Firearm murder data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm
Unintentional injury death stats: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm
Two days ago I walked into a friends unlocked garage to find at least 75 guns, mostly loaded, with ammunition lying all over. Some semi-auto assault rifles, some hunting rifles, tons of handguns. All perfectly legal (and legal to not be locked up too).
I think it's sad to live in a "successful" country where regular citizens feel the need to carry a loaded weapon in public. I think that's a strong indicator something is very wrong with this society.
I'm not an expert, and obviously guns don't kill people, though it's my observation there are a LOT of readily available guns in the US, and the US has a lot of guns deaths.
As an avid hunter I would never advocate "Taking the guns away", though I do think a few things should change - I believe gun laws in the US could be somewhat similar to Canada and Australia (no semi-autos or fully autos, basically no handguns, must be locked up, must apply for a license, need license to even buy ammo, etc) and gun enthusiasts can still have appropriate guns, while the sheer number of guns would drop substantially.
Citizens already can't own surface to air missiles, so we've already established some weapons are not suitable for private citizens, now we're just talking about what falls into what category.
I know it's a very difficult thing to change, as gun ownership is the 2nd amendment and is seen as a right not a privilege.
That same population has gay marriage (before Australia and Japan), and (in places) legal marijuana.
The reasons you state don't mean that laws can not be passed an enforced.
You're also giving up before you even try. Nobody said it was going to be easy - but if it brings gun deaths per capita in line with the rest of the developed world, I think everyone agrees it would be worthwhile.
The 65% guns still in population is an interesting statistic but as a well read Australian I am surprised I have never heard this before and suspect it is a politically motivated / chery picked statistic. Probably a better statistic if we are talking about gun violence would be the decrease in the levels of gum violence that have occurred since the buy back of guns in 1997.
It depends heavily on your social circle and what state you're in. Being from upstate NY, I was raised around guns because my father was a hunter, but now living in NYC, almost no one I interact with has ever fired a gun.
> Gun homicide rates have actually fallen in recent years, but those gains have been offset by rising gun suicide rates. Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths.
"...[S]uicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."
When Australia decreased the number of guns, the suicide rate (not just gun related suicides, but all suicides) decreased by 65%.
Also suicides via firearm had been declining in Australia prior to any buyback. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... [2] http://c5.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/australia.jpg
Here are some stats about alcohol related driver deaths in Pennsylvania
> 19% of driver deaths for 16-20 year olds were alcohol-related
> 44% of driver deaths for 21-25 year olds were alcohol-related
> 34% of driver deaths for 26-30 year olds were alcohol-related
I'm all for increasing the amount of data we gather and research we do in relation to firearms. I'm all for making intelligent decisions based on the data we gather. From where I'm sitting we don't make decisions based on the data we have (on either side).
This largely feels like bizarro abortion argument where both sides of the abortion argument are now arguing the exact opposite when it comes to firearms.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
Also, how do they define "gun violence"? Does that include accidental shootings? Suicides? From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of all deaths due to guns.
*=http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/wa... There are closer to 3,500 accidental drownings per year.
Note, discourage != prohibit. Regular PSA's about the dangers of pool ownership higher taxes, and or required fencing could all save lives.
Probably ladders as well...
Mandating they all be panted in iridescent reflective coatings would discourage ownership, but not actual use.
PS: Ladders are covered in safety warnings (which may be ridiculous). Guns, not so much.
You've reminded me: The CPSC introduced stop-sale regulation on magnets (remember Buckyballs?) for even fewer deaths than that, and where most of the non-fatal injuries were the result of poor decisions by adolescents. Worse, in my opinion, the relatively small number of deaths that occurred were almost all traceable to irresponsible adults leaving magnets in places where toddlers could pick them up and swallow them.
That's still a sore point for me.
The article says "Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."
The argument of the article is that consistent government regulation has helped curve motor vehicle deaths downwards and that consistent gun regulation might be able to do the same.
Also, prior to enacting gun control, Australia's non-firearm suicide rate doubled (1980-1996) while firearm suicide was cut in half.
Not sure there is any correlation.
And for the US - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/1...
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia#Measurin...
"The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."[61]"
"The implemented restrictions may not be responsible for the observed reductions in firearms suicide. Data suggest that a change in social and cultural attitudes could have contributed to the shift in method preference.[60]"
I wouldn't assume that it's settled.
The table I'm looking at says firearm suicides dropped by 50% prior to the gun buyback.
I'd argue the decrease in overall suicides is a general trend happened to coincide with the gun buyback.
To test if people are actually free, you study how the unpopular people and unwelcome ideas are handled. If they are restricted "for their own good", then any claim of being "free" are jut marketing.
The solution is better education and more communication (and better healthcare, including a lot more funding/availability for mental health services). Going after guns doesn't address the actual problem.
Oh, and "take some pills"? That really depends. You may survive, but hours of hypoxia from an overdose of respiratory depressants can be incredibly damaging, especially to the brain. If the overdose wasn't strong enough to cause that kind of damage, it may not even be a fatal dose. There is going to be a lot of variation, and "backing out" only apples some of the time.
[1] As someone who strongly supports the right to die, suicide is a complicated subject, and is not "stupid" in some cases. However, for the purposes of this thread, that is really off-topic. The "stupid" subset certainly exists and they would be the people who would benefit form the "backing out" you mention.
When you include external costs guns are massively subsidized. EX: Homeowners insurance generally does not ask about gun ownership even if it increases risks.
PS: The 18th may have allowed the sale of beer, but that does not mean the government can't discourage use though taxation.
That isn't the main topic of the article though. From the opening sentence: "For the first time in more than 60 years, firearms and automobiles are killing Americans at an identical rate". The headline simply points out the article's main data point of automobile and gun deaths converging.
This lays out the case for "reasonable" safeguards and limitations that should be put in place for guns because "reasonable" rules have made cars so much safer.
While that may be the claim, the NYT blew their cover with the front page editorial last week where they openly admitted to wanting all guns out of everyone's hands, regardless of the legality. What we understand now is that the "reasonable" laws are the wedge to start going for more and eventual outlawing.
The problem is that "gun control advocates" claim that people shouldn't own guns really mean that civilians shouldn't own them. They're still okay with government having guns.
Because "tyranny will never come to America..."
If I'm not mistaken, the implication here is that tyranny might come to America, and I 100% agree with that. Of course it might, and in fact I think the increasing surveillance state atmosphere makes it seem increasingly likely.
But any implication that civilian gun ownership could make a difference if it happens seems overly hopeful. The US military is the largest in the world by a large margin. If tyranny comes to America then a few civilian shotguns aren't going to help much.
What would be more likely to happen is something like the Civil War where the army itself was also divided. Even more importantly, it is a lot harder to control an army when the targets are the people the army supposedly exists to protect. In a survey[1] of "300 U.S. Marine Corps soldiers" about unit cohesion when working with the UN, the final question asked:
46. The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale,
transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty
(30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be
turned over to the local authorities. A the end of this period, a
number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms.
Consider the following statement:
I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of
firearms banned by the U.S. government.
(__) (__) (__) (__) (__)
Strongly disagree Disagree Agree Strongly agree No opinion
The results [...] with 88.0 percent responding,
revealed that 61.66 percent said they would refuse to fire on U.S. citizens,
whereas 26.34 percent indicated they would fire. This particular question,
unlike the others, elicited form 15.97 percent of the respondents with an
opinion, either heavier pen or pencil marks on their response or written
comments in the margin space. [...] The responses to this scenario
suggests that a complete unit breakdown could occur in a unit tasked to
execute this mission.
The military is a very large group of people, so the individual attitudes and politics of a soldier tends to resemble the attitudes and politics seen in the country in general. When considering a topic that is obviously politically controversial, you should expect that the people serving in the armed forces will be approximately as divided as the rest of the citizens.
As for the utility of civilian being armed, I think you are underestimating the deterrence factor. Yes, they would lose in some situations and are less important in others.
Consider the situation from the perspective of the attacking army. Fighting an army is hard enough, but that attack is a lot harder if you also have to defend against the population in general. The counter to that problem is a scorched earth policy that doesn't leave a population that could be a threat, but such a policy is risky and can easily turn more people against you.
We see this when our army fights in the middle east: when you want to maintain good PR instead of razing cities, small arms and IEDs can be surprisingly effective.
You can just subtract the numbers.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_... (Second column is "number of fatal shots", third is "total number of shots fired at people")
Of course, the USA have 4 times as many inhabitants and the German numbers are only related to gun-killings, not other methods. But still, they are in a completely different dimension.
What are we to make of this? Require anti-death features on a leathal weapon?
Cars don't kill people, anymore than guns do. It's the idiot behind the wheel/trigger that's doing the killing.
These pieces of metal are built to be controlled by responsible humans. They do not make decisions for you, anymore than a spoon is making the decision for me to eat another bowl of cereal!
"Gun related fatalities are currently as high as automotive related fatalities in the U.S. for the first time" might be a more precise statement, but it's a worse headline.
It looks like 2nd amendment protects right to suicide.
Please don't use ideological buzz-phrases here. It lowers the quality of discussion, regardless of what flavor of ideology you prefer.