Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Gunloon Paradox

Laws regulating firearms must be 100% perfect in preventing gun violence or they are all miserable failures. OTOH, it's perfectly acceptable to have thousands of deaths from murders, accidents, and suicides by gunloons.

6 comments:

  1. 100% of the laws regulating firearms are miserable failures.

    There, fixed it for you. Now it makes sense and is accurate.

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  2. Ah, but the 30,000 deaths are a small price to pay for all that freedom.

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  3. 14,000 Mike. If you're going to quote statistics, at least make sure they're accurate. Suicides don't count, because we all know people determined to kill themselves will do so regardless of the availability of guns (see Japan's suicide rate for proof).

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  4. Sorry, Colin, I just saw this after I asked you about it on the other thread. I figured this is how you think.

    First of all, what makes you think all the people who commit suicide with a gun are "determined?" Didn't you ever read about those surveys of gun suicide survivors and how they almost always not only don't try it again but express gratitude for having failed?

    Japan is a bad comparison because the culture there has a different attitude towards suicide than ours does. The hari kari tradition involves a knife and accounts for much of what you see in their stats.

    If guns were available there like they are in the States, their numbers would be way higher.

    So, gun suicides do count very much.

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  5. I'd like to see these surveys that "prove" people who survive suicide by gun are thankful that they didn't succeed. Everything I've ever seen seems to link the seriousness of the intentions with the method chosen. If it's just a cry for help, someone cuts across the wrists, or takes some pills and booze, and then calls a friend to "say goodbye," hoping all along that person will show up with the paramedics to save them. The serious ones just cut down the arm, jump off a building, step in front of a train or even use a gun.

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  6. I'll keep an eye out for the survey I was referring to, it'll turn up again I'm sure. I remember they interviewed survivors, it was quite dramatic.

    I think the way to understand it is covered in one of my favorite quotes about suicide:

    "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

    In other words, it's usually a case of temporary insanity, which a non-fatal bullet to the head can help a person snap out of.

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