Nearly 20,000 of the 30,000 deaths from guns in the United States in 2010 were suicides, according to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The national suicide rate has climbed by 12 percent since 2003, and suicide is the third-leading cause of death for teenagers.
[…]
Guns are used in more than half of all suicide fatalities, but account for just 1 percent of all self-harm injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms, a rough proxy for suicide attempts, Dr. Miller said. Overdoses, which account for about 80 percent of suicide attempts, are responsible for just 14 percent of fatalities.
I don’t suppose that Mother Jones posted the coefficient of determination, because that could be helpful. Also, @Ereiamjh, who @vetnoir was replying to, was talking about gun violence vs. political leaning, not gun death vs. gun ownership. These are very different comparisons.
In order for it to be a fact, you would have to know how many guns per capita are out there in everyday non gun-free zones. Then you would also have to know how many guns per capita there are on gun-free military bases. Visiting a military base or asking someone who has been in the military doesn’t magically make something a fact.
What is a fact, on the other hand, is that this sort of mass shooting has never happened at Andrews Air Force Base, which is the first US military base I could think of. I assume it’s also a gun-free zone, and despite you ALWAYS statement, it doesn’t seem to have happened there.
Although I see you’ve backed down from your statement, it’s far from clear that gunmen are targeting gun-free zones in particular. As I posted above, the Aurora shooter seems to have actually targeted the closest cineplex, which is presumably the one he was most familiar with. The Fort Hood shooter targeted his workplace. School shooters usually target their own school. Familiarity is probably a greater tactical advantage than any unknown gun-free zone would be, and to the extent these killers have a coherent motive a random gun-free zone would not serve their desire for revenge (or whatever else beyond simply killing people motivates them).
Just semantics; sorry. But @vetnoir said that:[quote=“vetnoir, post:7, topic:13277”]
whenever some lunatic does something like this, they always do it in the place where people are prohibited form carrying guns.
[/quote]
That’s not the same as saying that all gun-free zones have had shootings.
I think I would rather live in a society where suicidal people receive help before they try to hurt themselves. It is estimated that for every death by suicide there are 11 nonfatal suicide attempts. Those people should receive help. ( Statistics - National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) )
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24.
LGB youth are 4 times more likely, and questioning youth are 3 times more likely, to attempt suicide as their straight peers.
Suicide attempts by LGB youth and questioning youth are 4 to 6 times more likely to result in injury, poisoning, or overdose that requires treatment from a doctor or nurse, compared to their straight peers.
Nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt.
LGB youth who come from highly rejecting families are 8.4 times as likely to have attempted suicide as LGB peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection.
1 out of 6 students nationwide (grades 9-12) seriously considered suicide in the past year.
Suicide attempts are nearly two times higher among Black and Hispanic youth than White youth.
Each episode of LGBT victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times on average.
[quote=“fireshadow, post:161, topic:13277”]
Why ignore suicides and accidents?.[/quote]
For one, the poster you were replying to was replying to someone who was talking bout “gun violence” - not gun deaths.
I don’t see any relevance in including suicide numbers in gun deaths (and they aren’t part of “gun violence”). These are purposeful actions done by a person’s own free will. The gun has nothing to do with it, anymore than a razor blade or bottle of pills - other than it being a pretty effective tool for the task at hand. Japan has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, and one of the highest suicide rates. ETA - we should have euthanasia options so no one would have to leave a mess with a gun suicide.
Accidents aren’t relevant to gun violence either. Of course one would expect a correlation between number of gun owners and number of gun accidents. Just like states with more snowmobiles will have more snowmobile accidents.
I’m not arguing that. People may be distraught, depressed, etc and not doing it for a “good” reason. But they are still doing a purposeful act to themselves. For this reason I don’t think they are relevant when talking about gun deaths.
Are you OK with children using large amounts of alcohol and/or heavy drugs then? If they’re doing it to themselves, purposefully… But we make an assumption that people under a certain age are automatically unable to competently assess their own actions. So then - “Distraught, depressed” … how about insane? An otherwise physically healthy person wants to kill themselves - how sane can they be said to be? Just because a depressed, distraught person wants to do something is no reason to let them, and those numbers arguably belong included with the statistics under discussion IMO. It also certainly meets the criteria for gun violence/death: they meant to harm, using a gun, and succeeded - I see no reason to exclude this segment simply because the shooter and the victim were the same person.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. The problem I have is people using statistics to game their arguments. If you look at the numbers closer, or with more accuracy you can leave with a different conclusion. In the above example we had “violent gun deaths” vs “gun deaths”, and where a state would lie would change. Rural Montana is going to have more accidental deaths than homicides.
Suicides I just don’t feel are relevant. What is the purpose of including them in the statistics? What issue are you trying to address? To show guns are used to commit violent crime? Not relevant. That guns are dangerous if mishandled? Not relevant. What solutions are you trying to find with these numbers? Addressing violent crime and education in gun handling isn’t going to effect suicides.
Another example, which I believe they addressed in the book Freakonimcs, are “the number of children killed by guns”. If you removed all the teenaged gang related deaths, those numbers drop dramatically. Again, what are you trying to address? The older kids are more likely to be victims of violence where the younger ones are more likely to be accident victims. Lumping these two distinct groups together and exclaiming “OMG, the children!” isn’t going to help solve anything as their causes are very different from one another and require different solutions.
Where do you put suicide between those two choices? Death-by-gun in suicides has to be categorized somewhere.
I don’t know the numbers for Montana, but I have some on-the-ground experience due to relatives there…not sure I would automatically assume accidental gun deaths would exceed homicides, especially if domestic violence is included.
My dog in this fight is that I would be dead if guns in the home were as prevalent in the 1960s and 70s as they are now. Having a gun around makes any violence, any fear, any frustration in a household that much easier to escalate. I do distinguish between those who lock up guns separately from ammo (almost all of my current relatives, for example) and those who keep their guns loaded and readily available…but I have personal experience of gun deaths occurring in those homes, too, so that’s not enough.
[quote=“chgoliz, post:182, topic:13277”]
Where do you put suicide between those two choices? Death-by-gun in suicides has to be categorized somewhere. [/quote]
I think those numbers relevant when talking about suicides. I don’t find them relevant when discussing violent crime or firearm safety.
Well - lets look at the numbers:
Murders with a gun in 2010: 12
Suicides with a gun in 2011: Had trouble finding an exact number, but there were 225 suicides in Montana. Guns were used by most of the, with a total of 291 suicide attempts.
Accidental firearm deaths 2011: I couldn’t find Montana only, but for the US it was 851, which averages out at 17 deaths per state. I didn’t realize how low those numbers were, so it is possible for homicides to edge out accidents. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf
So my point I’ve been making is that one really needs to look at these number in context. For Montana at least, it looks like the best way to reduce gun deaths would be suicide prevention and counseling.
