Your question seems to indicate that you believe that the individual right to bear arms is counter to the common good. I don’t think it is the emphasis on individual rights that underlies our community violence issues as much as it is poverty.
I’m not suggesting that you grant yourself special privileges over and above your fellow man. I’m suggesting that ready access to machines that deal quick and efficient death has created a Public Health disaster in your nation, one which other developed nations don’t experience. That a sensible response to that disaster is to bring your nation in line with comparable nations and allow the restriction of your own rights along with everyone else’s. That’s not elitism, that’s humility. Thinking that the US is somehow exceptional and can disregard the experience of other nations is elitism.
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Buy war toys for Christmas have a happy holiday
Teach those little children to be hellcats when they play
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I’ll try to explain myself better then. I think that an absolutely rigidness about rights regardless of the impact of the exercise of those rights on society is counter to the common good. I don’t care if it’s right to free speech, right to bear arms, or any other right. If we can’t be reasonable about how those rights should be weighed against the common good then we are going to sacrifice the common good.
I also don’t think those rights are actually doing any work at protecting America from descending into a plutocratic police state with a lawless government, which is what I think they are supposed to be doing.
To borrow from a terrible and apocryphal quote, we have already agreed that firearms should be restricted, now we are just haggling over the terms. I personally find “mental health issue” to be very problematic in that list. Are trans people going to be denied guns like they are going to be denied driving in Russia because psychiatry is backwards nonsense? The link between mental health and violence is largely a media fantasy. The vast majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by those who don’t have a mental illness.
I also balk a bit at your suggestion that a person who has committed a crime in the past should have things that their society views as essential rights permanently denied to them. I guess it depends on the pardoning process.
But how is that model working? The US has conditions approaching (or already at) third-world living for a sizable number of its inhabitants. That’s been built the rhetoric of “liberty.” Maybe putting too much value on liberty is actually part of the problem.
I know that in Canada sometimes people get caught up in seemingly foolish disputes over speech that would never happen in America because of the strength of the first amendment. Whereas in Germany it’s outright illegal to draw a swastika. On the other hand, US police seem to kill US citizens at over double the rate that Canadian police kill Canadian citizens, and the German police appear to under-kill Canadian cops by an additional factor of 10 or 15. And that’s not to mention that US police forces have turned into organized theft rings.
Which people are actually being more oppressed by its government?
I’m with you 100% on this one. I just ask myself how America’s poverty was built, and the fiction of the great individual who did everything for themselves and owes nothing to society in return seems to be one of it’s central planks.
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[quote=“aeon, post:313, topic:50099”]
I’m suggesting that ready access to machines that deal quick and efficient death has created a Public Health disaster in your nation, one which other developed nations don’t experience.[/quote]
Just for clarity, what is the “Public Health disaster”?
Death by suicide is the 10th most common cause of death in the US. A disproportionate number of those are by gunshot when compared to nations with gun controls. Peacetime deaths by firearm are largely unnecessary and avoidable. Therefore it is a Public Health issue.
Just because the Centers for Disease Control tried to investigate and had funding withdrawn after NRA lobbying doesn’t stop it from being a Public Health issue.
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I think we are largely on the same page. I pointed out the prior criminal history and mental health as those are already on the books in the US today, but they really are not great indicators or gatekeepers for determining who should have/lose rights and are certainly subject to abuse (gender orientation as mental illness, recreational marijuana use as addiction).
And I may be wrong, but I think the great common good may be our stubborn insistence on individual rights. I think they are the commons that we need to protect.
I think we can have the individual rights and still maintain a focus on community good and charitable works together for the betterment of all.
The rest of the causes and issues in our society have so many different factors, well, I think we can go round discussing them for ages, so I don’t want to delve in and try, but I’ll keep pushing for the great American experiment with rights.
At 0.0125%, per Wikipedia, the USA does not seem that drastically variant from other countries. Yes, suicide deaths by firearm are much greater, but the overall rate seems somewhat comparable, so this hardly seems like a disaster being driven by guns. Countries with strict gun control have similar or higher suicide rates, so how does that support gun control?
Funding being withdrawn from studies hasn’t affected the CDC numbers at all, the analysis of deaths happens every period regardless and invoking the NRA boogeyman isn’t adding anything to your argument.
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I really suspect there is, or was some serious price gouging and supply manipulation by distributors and manufacturers as well. The laughable idea that the government needs more bullets is insanely widespread unfortunately.
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Because attempted suicide by firearm is frequently successful where other methods are much less so. So the actual suicide rate could be much lower.
Gun deaths also figure highly in Death by Homicide and Accidental Death. 2010 saw 31,513 deaths from firearms in the US. Breakdown: Suicide 19,308; Homicide 11,015; Accident 600. 31, 513 US citizens died unecessarily in 2010 alone because there is such easy access to deadly force. I think if you look at it like that guns end up being a top 10 killer on their own and most of those deaths would be preventable.
Your own association and choice of description. The NRA has no real resonance for me one way or the other (I don’t live in the USA). The comment about the NRA was merely factual. NRA lobbying did reduce funding for one of the most (if not the most) effective Public Health bodies in the world because they didn’t want research into the association between firearm ownership and mortality in US society.
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You know, if auto racing mechanics came out and said that certain aspects of cars were a safety issue, who would question it?
But when the top mechanics for fixing the human body say that guns are a public health issue (Michigan, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, to name a few), suddenly everyone is a master at biostats.
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Of course; the first paragraph would require self-examination.
It’s selfish to allow gun possession because of suicide? Might it be more selfish to forbid people from ending their own lives? Being able to choose how, when, and where ones self dies seems quite empowering to me.
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This isn’t how suicide works. The majority of people who consider suicide and are prevented from killing themselves report being glad that their attempt was not successful.
I am generally supportive of an individual’s right to die, but having a gun handy just in case in a moment of despair you decide you’d rather be dead than alive at that second isn’t really a good idea if you are the sort of person who has that sort of moment. And, frankly, you can’t really know you aren’t the sort of person who will have that kind of moment.
I’ve had aliens beam voices into my head telling me to jump in front of a subway (I never took that drug again). There would have been absolutely nothing empowering about doing that. Being empowered to wind up dead isn’t empowering.
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Honestly, I’m just putting this here because I think it’s awesome. But if I were going to contextualize it for the present discussion, I’d just say that it’s a fair example of how much of the rest of the world regards the USA’s obsession with personal arms guns and blowing shit up in general…(.)
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I suppose you did not bother to read all of my initial post before replying to it.
Aut quomodo dicis fratri tuo sine eiciam festucam de oculo tuo et ecce trabis est in oculo tuo?
At the end of the day, we know there is a link between completions and firearms in the US, but given our overall rates, there is no guarantee that banning firearms will produce a significant change in the number of completions and it is all guesstimates. Do you think the US rate would suddenly become much better than UK, CA, NZ?
The one thing we do know is that giving up the “right” makes it extremely unlikely to be restored, so there isn’t much willingness to experiment with such restrictions.
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Well, suicide statistics are difficult to trust because suicides don’t get recorded as suicides for a lot of different reasons, and aside from some fairly obvious cases, I don’t think we can predict which cultures are more likely to cover up suicides than which other cultures. I’m sure that some portion of the “accidental” firearms deaths in the US are suicides, but it’s impossible to know what portion. Like you say, I think we all know it would help, but we don’t know how much it would help.
At any rate I stand by my advice that a person who knows they contemplate suicide should avoid gun ownership for their own safety. I’m sure I sounded like I was overblowing the chance of any individual killing themselves. I know that for most people that’s not going to be at the top of the list of things to worry about. Beyond that, it would be nice is people tried to understand suicide a little better, but that’s really my pet issue.
I was pointing out the selfishness of diminishing a nationwide issue affecting many by pointing out that personal risk is low because we (the poster and I) are not in one of the ‘at risk’ groups.
Is a separate issue. My only thoughts on that are that it shouldn’t be made easy to end your own life an a whim (and easy access to firearms make that possible) and I’d rather you don’t try and give me the job of killing you.
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