__
__
… but a gun in the hands of an angry individual is always one bad decision away from a tragedy.
According to the YouTube comments, two young people are dead, and a three-month-old will never know either of her parents, but Bob Costas is a TRAITOR TO AMERICA because SECOND AMENDMENT MY RIGHTS! ! !
We’d be so much better off if Americans could separate the idea of gun-as-a-tool, like a chainsaw, from gun-as-a-religious-icon.
Also, Slate needs to learn how to use the Cavuto Mark — unless attracting a blizzard of angry pro-gun (and some pro-domestic violence) commentary was the actual intention.
Chris
Ain’t that the truth.
I don’t even mind having the right to own guns… but when you can’t even suggest gun registrations or ten-day waiting periods without being attacked as a Communist Islamo-fascist trampling on the Second Amendment, there’s something wrong.
Mr Stagger Lee
There will be no discussion on Gun Control, unless there is a groundswell of the public, because the politicians ain’t going to touch it.
red dog
There is that 27% of Mericuns that know they must have guns to protect them from the other 26.99999% with guns.
Spaghetti Lee
Brave of him, I guess, considering his audience* (although Costas is probably famous enough to not worry as much). It’s definitely a shitshow that he’s the one bringing it up, and not, say, anyone in Congress.
* (Yes, I know that some liberals watch ESPN. I’m one of them. But good God are there some utter troglodytes in the sports-fandom world.)
harebell
It’s also amazing how many of the ignorant mouthbreathers make claims about countries who do have pretty strict gun control laws.
The one who says that violent crime is a huge concern in the UK is one such jackass, except the rate of violent crime in the UK has almost halved since 1995 while the population has increased and the economic situation has gone pear shaped.
What is it about the religious, the prats who need a gun to make them feel in control and the extreme right that makes them lie to try and win an argument?
Redshift
A conservative acquaintance of mine was harrumphing on Twitter about how inappropriate it was to “use Sunday Night Football for personal ideology.”
It can’t have anything to do with guns. If he hadn’t had a gun, he would have just beat himself to death with a stick, right?
Spaghetti Lee
Also, just because I get reminded of it every time, YouTube comments are the absolute worst thing on the planet. If some advanced alien race discovered them, they’d blow up Earth out of sheer pity. They’re the single greatest argument for editing the ability to learn language out of the human genome. When grammarians die and go to Hell, their job for all eternity is transcribing YouTube comments on videos featuring racial minorities and/or politicians. Say what you will about the stagnancy of the pre-internet media, but at least it kept decent people and people who post in YouTube comments sections away from each other.
Talabama
Registrations and waiting periods are security theater than have no quantifiable effect on crime. Crime began decreasing before the 1994 assault weapons ban (ban bayonets & pistol grips b/c THE CHILDREN). Crime statistics decreased throughout the ban and continued to decrease after the ban expired in 2004. Particularly in this case with an NFL player in top physical state, the only thing the gun enabled was for him to go thank his football employers before killing himself. Ban football.
RobertDSC-PowerMac 466
Right message, wrong time, wrong place.
Besides, there’s nothing to be done. the guns and ammo are already out there.
Talabama
@Redshift: yeah no one’s ever committed suicide without a gun.
MattR
@Spaghetti Lee: This was on NBC.
FWIW, here is the Jason Whitlock article that Costas was quoting. There are some minor difference and I am not sure if the article was edited or Costas was imprecise in his quoting. I thought this bit (from right before where Costas began quoting) was very good as well
Recall
@Talabama: It’s harder than you would think.
Yutsano
@Mr Stagger Lee: Sigh. This.
slag
@Spaghetti Lee:
I was honestly going to try to parody a YouTube comment in response to this, but I couldn’t come up with anything ridiculous enough to serve the purpose. And in cases where I thought I got kind of close, I couldn’t actually bring myself to type the necessary words. Which essentially proves your entire point.
Whidby
Agreed. Many gun control advocates are irrational in their emotionalism about guns.
People understand that knives and baseball bats and cars are just tools and nobody calls for those tools to be banned after they kill someone.
slag
@Recall: Especially the murder part of the murder suicide. I guess you can stab someone and then stab yourself to death, but that might be a little more complicated than simply pulling a trigger. And I suspect rat poison tastes pretty bad.
Redshift
@Talabama: Yeah, who cares about research showing that individuals in a home with firearms are five times more likely to commit suicide than those in homes without? Unless it’s completely impossible for people to commit suicide without guns, the presence of guns making it easier to successfully act on impulse can’t possibly be of any relevance.
Talabama
@Recall: Apparently not. See, for example, japan . More detail of methods .
Mr Stagger Lee
@Spaghetti Lee: I think that is why those humanoids in Prometheus, wanted to send those aliens to Earth to wipe out the population. :-)
Talabama
@Redshift: But correlation is not causation. Reducing gun availability would definitely reduce gun suicides, but that is the only sure bet. Likely the means shifts to other methods and the overall rate is not changed. The correlation exists in the USA because guns are available and are an effective tool for suicide. Do you honestly believe that giving someone a gun would drive them to suicide? Why doesn’t the USA have the highest per capita suicide rate, or is not even in the top ten? Guns are tools, not some magic death totems.
Mr Stagger Lee
@MattR: I read alot of Jason Whitlock and I can tell you the commentators at Fox Sports make YouTube ones look like they are from NPR.org.
MattR
@Redshift: It seems insensitive to make any sort of analogy about gun violence, but I am reminded of Donald Trump’s post election Twitter comments. You don’t need Twitter to be an asshole. Using Twitter does not make you act like an asshole. And not using Twitter does not prevent you from acting an asshole. But having Twitter makes it easier to react like an asshole in real time before you can regain control over your emotions. But you can delete a Twitter message. It is much harder to un-pull the trigger of a gun.
@Mr Stagger Lee: I probably would have guessed that before I read a single comment ;)
Maude
@slag:
Wyoming. That was bow and arrow, plus knife.
It’s the level of violence that shows that there is something wrong with the country. Guns are easier and faster which gives impulsive people the ability to carry out murder without physical effort.
Ed or Edna Dane Defender of Donuts
Let’s face it many feel the same as this guy in the following clip >.>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbHH5xZcVvQ
jshooper
I just got through listening to a “debate” about this issue on my local news station…between a local activist and a right wing nutjob…the nutjob was yelling and screaming about how horrible Costas was and that he should be fired…and that it’s our “god given” constitutional right to bear arms…He then proceeded to make the DISGUSTING and OUTRAGEOUS claim that if the victim had only had a gun she could have been able to defend herself…and the answer is MORE GUNS not less guns…these assholes really have no sympathy for the victims of gun violence…and think that the answer is to have wild wild west gunfights all over the country
Anthony
@Talabama: The point is that it’s more difficult, and the attempt without a gun is more likely to fail, and more failed attempts mean more opportunities for psychiatric intervention. I don’t see why you’re being this obtuse.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Talabama: It’s the sudden and irreversible response to an impulse that makes gun ownership increase the likelihood of suicide. Or homicide, for that matter. With some other methods (not all, of course) there’s an “Oh shit!” moment where one might come back from the brink. Pulling the trigger with the shotgun in your mouth is not one of those.
Whidby
@Anthony:
Which is why suicide rates in Japan are so low.
Recall
@Talabama: Firearms have a far higher suicide completion rate than any of the methods you referenced. Nothing else comes close.
Anne Laurie
@Talabama: “Crime” is only peripherally about gun ownership. Jovan Belcher was not, it would seem, a “criminal” before he got into an argument with his girlfriend that escalated into murder/suicide. The folks I knew, thirty years ago, who lost a five-year-old when he found Daddy’s gun weren’t criminals, nor was the acquaintance who accidentally shot his live-in girlfriend (non-fatally) because she was coming home late from her waitshift and he woke up thinking intruder. Plenty of non-criminals do terrible things, to themselves & others, because we’ve gotten confused about what guns can and can’t protect us from.
What I’d like to see happen with “the conversation” about guns is something like what’s happened with cigarettes. When I was young — even 40 years ago — people smoked in hospitals, even maternity wards, and it’s not because they didn’t know cigarette smoke contained toxins. Twenty-five years ago, I pointed out to a fellow diner ruining the meals of everyone within smoke-range that she was sitting in the non-smoking section, and she called for the management to complain that I had no right to force her to expose her (wheezing) little baby to other people’s smoke. Gradually the social covenant has shifted from “All grown-ups smoke, that’s how you know they’re grown-ups” to “Some people are nicotine addicts, and that’s their bad luck, but we discourage indiscrimate smoking around non-addicts because it’s dangerous and inconsiderate.”
That change has been fought every inch of the way, by the smokers and by the powerful industries who made (make) huge money off smokers, and not without attacks of nauseating sanctimony among non-smokers. But today even the narcissists who think their cigs don’t stink are aware that other people may not agree… and the more public areas are declared smoke-free, the fewer cases of lung cancer.
So, on the one hand, SECOND AMENDMENT. But on the other hand, guns (as far as I know) aren’t physically addictive, so changing the social paramters of who can use them and where shouldn’t be as physiologically stressful for gun owners, either!
Anthony
@Whidby/Talabama: If you wanna take a two country sample size, call it a day, and pat yourself on the back go the fuck ahead. But it doesn’t take decades of epidemiological research to figure out how being able to kill yourself with the press of a button makes it more likely you’ll get the job done.
I don’t give a fuck about gun control, but don’t talk about suicide like it’s some predestined, yes-or-no category; it’s fucking offensive.
AxelFoley
@Talabama:
And so it begins…
? Martin
Dr Drew was one of our local guys before he went national, and a while back he noted how the celebrity press report. They’ll report standard stuff and idiosyncratic stuff while actively helping cover up serious issues like drug use or psychological problems. They do this in part because they don’t want to sell out their paycheck, part because covering the DUI is better than just some drunken rant at a club so they wait for the big items, and part because the celebs know they have big dirt and give them lesser dirt to keep the secret which eventually they’ll give up as well.
He noted that contrary to what you might think, if the media report on a drug problem in a celeb, that means the situation is MUCH more serious than they’re reporting. It’s a strange sort of intervention before the celeb gets too far gone for help.
I suspect a similar arrangement exist with athletes and a if Costas is speaking, he sees a much bigger problem than we do.
Pb
This is Slate, after all, of course that was the intention. Flamebait is the only kind of traffic they know how to get.
El Cid
Funny thing, though — Costas didn’t even mention gun control as in regulations or laws.
He just spoke as if owning handguns (via his paraphrasing and his end comments) was a bad idea.
Apparently now the Second Amendment forbids people from suggesting that maybe people shouldn’t purchase and keep handguns around.
Costas might have all sorts of opinions about gun control.
But the right is doing today’s nut-going (they can’t go nuts if they’re always nuts) about Costas and Gubmit and Seconmendent without Costas’ actually suggesting that anything should be done by laws or governments or any such thing.
Does the 2nd Amendment in fact prohibit us from suggesting to people that they should not buy and carry or keep handguns?
Were the Founding Fathers indeed so zealous about the 2nd Amendment that they meant for it not just to mean that any American can own any firearm they want and take it anywhere but that it in fact trumps the 1st Amendment in that the 2nd Amendment requires Americans to talk about guns as though they’re fucking awesome and we all should have them and love them and carry them and sleep with them and think about using them every second of every day, for Freedom?
Spaghetti Lee
@Anne Laurie:
I was born in 1990 and in elementary school, cigs were never anything but an object of loathing in the curriculum (along with drugs in general, of course, but cigarettes seemed to get a lot of press: maybe it’s just easier to talk with kids about cigarettes than, say, meth.) And yet, IIRC, the reason smoking rates are staying steady in the US is because people my age are picking it up, even as older people who have been doing it their whole life are able to quit. Sigh. Can we blame this one on the hipsters?
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
Judging by the irrational trolls who have already posted here — yes, it is no longer socially permitted to question the utility of guns or wonder aloud if it’s a good idea to let everyone who wants a gun to have one, even if it means that fatal arguments may have been a lot less fatal without the presence of a gun.
Never question the gun. The gun is good …
trex
Not to mention a shitload of comments amounting to “guns don’t kill, blahs do.”
? Martin
@El Cid: The Founders were so adamant that nobody even talk about guns that they didn’t even mention them in the Constitution. It wasn’t until several years later that they mustered up the courage to put the word in writing.
trollhattan
@Anthony:
Bottom line: the minute a gun enters a household, it becomes less, not more “safe” from an epidemiological/actuarial standpoint.
I mentioned yesterday that Bloomberg has begun targeting key congressional races to unseat pro-NRA incumbents, with some success. It’s something. Wayne LaPierre ain’t Spartacus.
Roger Moore
@Talabama:
Correlation is not causation, but it’s a big fucking hint about where to look. Here’s another clue; the big difference between households with and without guns is the success rate, not the frequency, of suicide attempts.
Mino
Uh, do Red Staters have Second Amendment fetishes because they have no health insurance.
Talabama
@Anthony: Wrong. Data I linked to before ( but let me spoon feed it to you ) shows 107 countries. Eyeballing it I see high access to guns (USA, Canada, Israel, Sweden) with relatively low suicide rates compared to those of restricted access countries (south korea, china, japan). I know this is not rigorous analysis, but A quick pubmed check showed no review articles on suicide factors globally, but show me if I missed an obvious article.
But you are also trying to completely separate intent from selected method. Parasuicide is a cry for help and such a person is likely to hang out on a public bridge or take a lot of pills (but insufficient to overdose). Someone intent on suicide is likely to use a gun or leap in front of a train.
pseudonymous in nc
[NRA]If the three-month old daughter had had a gun, this wouldn’t have happened.[/NRA]
…some fucker was firing a gun outside tonight. It’s pretty much the sticks around us, so fuck knows what he was aiming at.
Talabama
@Anne Laurie: I chose ‘crime’ because it’s one case where we have data before during and after some gun control legislation, the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban. It was uncorrelated to crime. My argument is not we need guns because CRIMINALS, but that gun control tends to work a lot like taking your shoes off for the TSA: It is security theater that has no effect on the targeted behavior, but some people really feel the need for it, other people are heavily inconvenienced by it, and the government gets to DO SOMETHING (useless).
Talabama
@Roger Moore: Again, a person intent on success is probably going to choose a better method for suicide, such as a gun or a train. A person looking for help is likely to hang out on a ledge, or take a lot of aspirin. Intent likely heavily influences method selection. In this case removing guns doesn’t lower the rate, just decreases the gun rate but increases the train rate. This isn’t rocket surgery.
Anthony
@Talabama: Again, you’re a dumbass. Suicide attempts don’t cut that cleanly between attention-seeking and ‘real’ intent.
SatanicPanic
@El Cid: Notice how they’ll say “Responsible gun owners would never…” one minute, then say “everyone should own a gun” the next.
Clearly, responsible gun owners= everyone who owns a gun who hasn’t killed anyone in a legally unjustifiable* way yet.
*of course, the bar for this keeps getting lower
trex
Reading the comments around the gun debate, the gun nut position has evolved to be: “if you try to limit my ability to possess or carry a weapon in even the slightest way, I will be forced to shoot you with it and overthrow the government.”
It’s the ultimate fear issue for the lizard brains, one that revolves around their own perceived chances for survival in a country full of
bearssavage Indiansblahs. “Murder babies and force socialism down their throats” all you want, liberals, and they’re going to be irritable but get over it. Threaten the holy gun totem, however, and you’re gonna eat lead.pseudonymous in nc
@Talabama:
[citation required]
The US is a violent country. It is a violent country that glorifies state violence, and does so at its gaudiest during NFL and college football games, where there’s always a stealth bomber available for a flypast. Next week, there will be a game between the cadets of two branches of the armed forces, with the inevitable rah-rah and satellite links to Afghanistan. It is a violent country that, in turn glorifies vigilante violence, and in many regions, glorifies violent rebellion.
It is a violent country that also likes things delivered fast and served hot, and guns deliver violence very fast and very hot.
SatanicPanic
@Talabama: I know, totally. When you can’t find your gun you can just reach for the train that you keep in your nightstand. It’s like the same amount of effort and time to find a train to run yourself over with.
pseudonymous in nc
@Talabama:
It certainly isn’t fucking clinical psychology, about which you should probably shut the fuck up lest you make an even bigger fool of yourself.
Talabama
@pseudonymous in nc: @Anthony:
That’s a lot of good insults. Your points are irrefudiatable. I misunderestimated your sound reasoning skills.
Pooh
DougJ outdoing himself with Talabama?
thalarctos
@slag: “And I suspect rat poison tastes pretty bad.”
You got that right–very bitter, like strychnine.
Having tasted strychnine in a traditional remedy, and on daily rat poison for life (warfarin) for life, I can say the taste of the necessary amount would give me some pause.
Talabama
@SatanicPanic:
From pubmed result #7 for ‘impulse suicide’ :
‘The case studies presented here also show that, in one way or another, self-destructive processes have an early beginning and continue throughout life, and at times of stress are initiated by the person.’
So most of the time one doesn’t wake up on a whim and off oneself.
I seem to be the only participant supplying any data (admittedly not rigorous, but ‘blog comment appropriate’) in support of my points. If I am so wrong surely google, pubmed, or WHO have this data?
Recall
Here you go:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/index.html
trex
Talabama
@Recall: This data is for the united states, and I’ve acknowledged this, and any cursory search on google will turn up numerous similar studies from CDC and DOJ. As I’ve insisted repeatedly, I think guns are selected because they are good tools for suicide and readily available. I suspect that if you remove guns you reduce gun suicides but not overall suicides. The best way I can think of to test guns ‘causing’ suicide is some sort of regression analysis using global data and adjusting for numerous factors such as economy, climate, daylight hours, season length, etc. I haven’t been able to find such analysis. Another possibility would be to analyze suicide in England before and after their handgun ban, with adjustements for fluctuation in rates of other european countries in the same time frame.
Anne Laurie
@Talabama: And my argument is that America has a whole lot of unnecessary tragedies every year, not because ‘guns are bad’, but because guns are tools, powerful & potentially dangerous tools, that too many people own for the wrong reasons. From the information we have, Jovan Belcher didn’t set out to commit suicide — or murder. He had an argument with his girlfriend, and there was a gun at hand, so suddenly his girlfriend was dead and the only solution he could come up with was to call his mentors, drive to his workplace, and use that same gun to end his own problems (while causing a whole lot more pain to the people he left behind). If Belcher had bought a chainsaw instead of a gun… well, maybe he’d have destroyed something his girlfriend valued, but it’s unlikely he’d have used the chainsaw on her person. He might well have punched her, or hit her with something, or stabbed her with a kitchen knife — and that would’ve been a very bad thing, but her chances of survival would’ve been much higher.
Guns are not a good way to solve arguments. Guns are not a protection against frustration, or fear of people who aren’t enough like the gun-owner, or social insecurity. Some people have sound reasons to believe they need to have a gun — for recreation, or hunting, or as last-ditch protection against other humans. But for quite a large percentage of modern Americans, a gun is no more useful than a chainsaw or a wood chipper, and quite a bit more liable to dangerous misuse.
MikeJ
@slag:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Dorothy Parker
Recall
You. Are. Wrong.
Guess what? They’ve also figured out that people like you are ignorant fuckasses:
pseudonymous in nc
@Talabama:
Just for the sake of reference: “likely” is not a synonym for “what I’m pulling out of my ass”.
Yutsano
@thalarctos: OT: Inauguration Night. Save the date. We’re meeting up again!
? Martin
FYI, the tea party rejects the latest fiscal cliff offer as ‘offers disappointingly small spending reductions’. Apparently they didn’t get the message that Obama won the election.
Oh, what was that? That was their criticism of Boehners laughable offer? I think Captn Spraytan is fucked.
Yutsano
@? Martin: My popcorn futures are a long position. Hoocodanode?
Gretchen
@Talabama: Another reason Japan may have a high suicide rate is because it’s shameful to admit psychological problems there. An acquaintance of mine living there had to come home after the tsunami because he was having problems, and you can’t get antidepressants there. Their approach to psych problems is that there aren’t any.
Oregon Guy
Recall @ 57
Aaaaand scene.
Bago
The cognitive dissonance must be bizarre, when you need more ID to vote than to buy a gun and ammunition.
Talabama
@Anne Laurie: Your second paragraph shows why gun restrictions are annoying and ineffective. Nothing short of an outright ban is going to have a quantifiable impact. Allowing purchase for hunting or recreation is great, but people hunt with large revolvers, IDPA and IPSC are popular worldwide, so there are ‘legitimate’ reasons for civilian handgun ownership according to your legislation. OK, ban handguns. Crimes of passion are often committed with grandpa’s shotgun. Long guns can be cut down with a hacksaw for concealment. Ban high capacity magazines. well charles whitman showed you just need an isolated place and a bolt action. The aurora guy chose a theater (bottleneck exits) so had time to reload and clear jams. None of these restrictions affect murder suicides, except you probably won’t drive to see coach one last time. Fine, Limit ammunition purchases. How? Many people reload their brass cartridges, cast their own bullets, etc. Technology will soon render most of this pointless, as people can more easily make their own. people make AK pattern rifles out of shovels. Note, he made the receiver himself (which is legal under ATF as long as you aren’t manufacturing for sale), so there was no transfer of a firearm. CNC machines and 3d printers are getting cheaper everyday.
Most proposed gun legislation is well meaning but useless.
Xenos
This is all just misdirection by Costas.
Guns don’t kill people, football kills people.
The prophet Nostradumbass
“Well, we psychiatrists have found that over 8% of the population will always be mice. I mean, after all, there’s something of the mouse in all of us. I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn’t felt sexually attracted to mice. I know I have.
I mean, most normal adolescents go through a stage of squeaking two or three times a day. Some youngsters on the other hand, are attracted to it by its very illegality. It’s like murder – make a thing illegal and it acquires a mystique.
Look at arson – I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn’t set fire to some great public building. I know I have.
The only way to bring the crime figures down is to reduce the number of offences – get it out in the open – I know I have.”
Anne Laurie
@Talabama: And smokers still die of lung cancer — some after years of rolling their own. Doesn’t mean we should let kids buy cigarettes, or stop expanding public anti-smoking zones.
There are too many unnecessary guns in too many American homes, for all the wrong reasons. That doesn’t mean “we” should send “security” crashing into homes to confiscate weapons. But it does mean “we” need to start talking about guns as dangerous tools, with a considerable potential for misuse — not as magical icons of FREEEDOM that protect their posessors from bad thoughts, socioeconomic threats, or personal insecurity.
Jovan Belcher had every right to own a gun, but I don’t believe he had a practical use for that gun. And if he hadn’t felt the “need” to own a gun (because that’s what men do? because he’d inherited it, or was holding it for a friend? because guns r kewl?) he almost certainly wouldn’t be dead today, and quite possibly neither would Kasandra, and there wouldn’t be a lot of internet tough guys talking about What Can You Expect From Those People and He Saved Us the Cost of A Trial.
Americans are stupid about guns. We’ve been stupid about them for a long time, and even if most of us eventually get smarter, there are so many guns and so many people who are stupid or malicious or both, it’ll be years if not generations before we can do more than make a dent in the vast supply of Gun-Stupid. Doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t start trying for less stupid, because if not now, when?
dollared
@Talabama: That’s why the best solution is to ostracize assholes like you, who make up data and lie incessantly and with complete indifference to data because you love fucking guns, you like to touch them, buy them, argue with people about them, show them to your friends.
If we can successfully isolate and ridicule people like you, maybe then fewer impressionable people will buy guns and put them in their homes. And then fewer innocent children will die in accidents, and fewer spouses will die from impulsive domestic violence, and fewer people will die from crimes committed with stolen guns.
But you enjoy your religion while you can. It seems to really motivate you.
dollared
@Anne Laurie: You go, girl!
dollared
@Anne Laurie: You go, girl!
dollared
@Anne Laurie: This. Top to bottom. We beat tobacco, we can beat this.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anne Laurie: God Damn Right.
e.a.f.
We have gun control in Canada. In our country of more than 38 million people, we do not have the number of gun deaths the City of Chicago has. The news reported they would have 500 gun deaths by the end of this yr. This does not bode well for the future of the U.S.A.
The guns Americans have are way more powerful than the average person would ever need to go hunting or for self defense. The American constituttion may have given Americans the right to bear arms but let us try to remember that was in the day people carried rifles which were about good for one shot before they required reloading. They were not automatic or AK whatevers. I don’t believe the founders of the U.S.A. thought the right to bear arms would result in mass shootings in theatres or children with guns to kill other children.
My understanding the American constitution wanted people to be able to bear arms so they might organize militias. Of course if you consider your local drug gang a militia I guess that works too.
What really surprises me is a country which doesn’t have a great public medical system would have so much gun violence. Gun shoots require hospitals & drs, etc. Something which is not inexpensive.
With all the death penalty states, gun violence/death has not been reduced. With all the guns in America I don’t see a reduction in B & Es or armed robberies, etc. I don’t see a reduction in crime at all. I would suggest trying some sort of gun control if only to reduce the number of highly automatic fire arms.
When it makes the news that there wasn’t a murder in New York City on one day you have to wonder what is wrong. A lot of countries in the world don’t have even a murder a day.
MikeJ
Step one: make it illegal for anyone who has ever yelled at a waiter or store clerk to own a gun. People with poor self control shouldn’t own weapons.
Talabama
@Recall: Well I was wrong. I read Matthew Millers 2006 article full text here. For each 10% decrease in household availability they report a 2.5% decrease in total suicide rate, which translates to about 93 averted suicides a year at todays rates of 12 per 100,000 (CDC 2006) in a population of 311 million. So there is some association, at least in the USA over that time frame. However, the NAS working group that M Miller was also a part of acknowledges that causality is not determined, and lays out a plan for future studies. Even the Original Miller study acknowledges that they can’t prove causality, and that fewer people contemplating suicide could lead to reduced firearms purchases/access. The other question I have is whether the decrease in suicides continues tracking as availability decreases. Is there a ‘floor’ at which the method shifts from gun to other?
@Anne Laurie: This is all noble and good, but I’ve never seen it followed up with legislation that would be anything but a nuisance. Most legislation is ‘no evil looking accessory’, or Model A is banned because it looks like an army rifle, while model B looks like grandpa’s deer gun and is fine, even though model B fires a larger/longer range/ more deadly cartridge. There is a lot of stupid, but stupid is hard to legislate. The data in that Miller article shows gun availability decrease as a societal trend, not some legislative impact.
@dollared: Ostracize means ignore, not hurl insults toward. I never lied or made up data, but don’t let the truth ruin a good INTERNETTOUGHGUY routine. Here is the internet attention you crave.
Insomnia cured (thanks M Miller). Internet history of suicide searches may concern my wife though.
JPL
What I learned reading the overnight site…
Gun fanatics think the 2nd amendment prevents one from speaking about gun ownership and responsibility..
Gun fanatics think you should be allowed to bring your gun with in everywhere but smoking in public areas is bad…
Gun fanatics think it is insensitive to talk about gun responsibility after a murder/suicide involving a gun.
aimai
@El Cid:
Well, that’s Talabama’s notion, isn’t it? Its practically a form of brutality that anyone, ever, suggests that its not a great idea to be near people who own guns as a matter of hysterical principle in the complete absence of reason. These fucking gun nuts never do anything useful with their guns–or we’d see stories all the time about how “Mr. X defended his wife and children from a bear” or “Miss X was not raped last night by her father because she shot him first.” Instead its a pretty steady drumbeat of “baby shot when the gun a neighbor kept in his stove goes off accidentally when the stove is turned on.” “Young black man shot because old fart doesn’t like loud music,” “Japanese exchange student shot because frightened homeowner is scared of willowy tourists who are lost.”
I, personally, don’t want to be near paranoid hysterics who are cathected to their guns and worried that they will need it. I don’t want to be near people who get angrier with a mild mannered man who points out that a horrible crime was committed and we should be grieving and reflecting than they do over the senseless death of a young woman in front of her three month old baby.
aimai
Omnes Omnibus
Just because someone has a legal right to do something does not necessarily mean that doing the thing is a good idea. For example, a person has a First Amendment right to go on an unhinged rant about black people at an Omega Psi Phi convention. This, however legal it may be, is nevertheless a bad idea.
Paul
@El Cid:
On a separate issue regarding Freedom. All those people in favor of the 2nd amendment claims it is about THEIR right to have the freedom to own a gun if they want to. But what about MY rights?
For example, after the Gifford shooting I no longer go to political rallies. I am scared to death that some idiot with a gun will show up. Again, what about MY rights to do things in life such as going to a political rally? The gun nuts have basically this right away from me.
Ash Can
@Talabama: Take your convoluted gun apologias and stick them up your ass. You’re right that gun control legislation isn’t effective, because the courts will never allow it to go far enough to actually start to address the gun-addiction illness this nation has, all because judicial interpretation of the second amendment ran off the rails years ago and our system of basIng court rulIngs on precedent won’t let It go back. This nation both glorIfIes guns and makes It way, way too easy to own them, and is all the less safe and more deadly for it. Fucking deal with it.
arguingwithsignposts
@Omnes Omnibus: probably a very bad idea, time, place and manner wise.
Also, do we have a dedicated crew of single-issue lurker/posters around here, or is it just me? The gun posts draw out one set, the I/P posts draw out another set. People whose nyms are rare on the threads.
Lee
The blood of innocents is the price we pay for the 2nd amendment.
Until we as a people feel that price is too high nothing will change.
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: Single issue folks? It does seem like it. Or some could be DougJ.
@Lee: It isn’t the 2d Amendment per se, but rather a dumbass interpretation of it that is the problem. I am pretty much a free speech absolutist, but I see no problem with time, place, and manner regulations. Second Amenedment people seem to view any regulation as an infringement of their rights. Loonies.
Cassidy
People like Talabama are correct in one aspect: gun legislation is toothless and political theater. There is only one way to address the gun ownership issue and that’s with registration; there is no practical argument for anything else. All the rest is bullshit, but I’m not gonna debate with a brick wall of willful ignorance.
I’ve used this example before and will again. For less than $200 I can buy a Ruger 10/22 in .22 LR. For less than $25 I can buy a box of 500 rnds of said .22 LR in hollowpoint and load it into my two+ 50 rnd beta mags at $64.99 (on Sale! yay!) and I’m now a walking weapon of mass destruction with plent of ammo, a proven, reliable rifle and simple enough for anyone to use. All that and I spent way less than any AR 15 style of rifle.
The point is that it’s not the weapon that matters. For instance, if we ban any calibers larger than .40 in handguns, it won’t stop gun violence. You’re just as dead from a 9mm or .22lr pistol or a .380; you might have to get a little more up close and personal. This leads to two options: 1) ban them all, 2) registration. Option 1 isn’t bad and I’d be willing to give up my hobby for that, but it’s not remotely realistic. Option 2 is slightly more realistic, but I have a feeling people are a lot better behaved when they know their name is on a list somewhere.
kay
@Talabama:
That someone who uses the term “security theater” is also opposed to gun regulation amuses me. There’s PLENTY of regulation around guns. It’s just that none of it ever reaches 1. guns or 2. gun owners, directly.
Fact is, we can’t regulate guns or gun owners because they’re surrounded by a pack of lobbyists, so instead we regulate everyone else. I have to post an exception to Ohio’s lobbyist-written concealed carry law on the door of my business, because I do high conflict work and you can’t come in here armed to the teeth or someone is going to get hurt. Why isn’t concealed carry the exception? Why are you encroaching on MY liberty? YOU should post the exception.
Why do 4th graders have to endure “lock downs” at their schools to practice for when the gun nut enters? Why are we regulating THEM?
We have a wingnut muni court judge who likes to lecture me on “liberty”. His workplace is secured with a metal detector and police. No gun nut is going to enter his sanctuary. The metal detector covers the whole building, including the county nurse. You can’t take an infant in for a vaccination without walking thru a metal detector. MY workplace (and everyone else’s) on the other hand, is like the fucking wild west thanks to corporate lobbyists. Liberty!
Lojasmo
@Talabama:
Gunshot wound is the NUMBER ONE method of suicide. 55% of all suicides are, in fact, committed with a firearm.
Stop the stupid.
Lee
@Cassidy:
I’m not even sure registration will do much to stop the violence especially with the shear number of weapons already out there.
liberal
@Cassidy:
That’s not true. Handguns are much more easy to conceal than longguns. Though I suppose someone could argue that someone could take a shotgun and saw down the barrel.
Shadow's Mom
@Talabama: Guns may be tools, but I thought this graphic comparing the level of gun-related violence correlated to the existence of gun control legislation was telling in its simple graphical representation of the issue. Contrary to NRA polemics on the question of public safety and guns, this demonstrates that there is a direct correlation between the number of gun-related crimes and the laxity of gun controls in a state.
http://goo.gl/nA3tb
Owning a gun is a responsibility as well as a constitutional right. The social contract indicates that we share in a mutual responsibility to ensure that there are effective controls on the exercise of the right to gun ownership. No one is trying to take guns away from responsible owners; however, the pro-gun lobby has failed to demonstrate its understanding of social responsibility when it continues to promote irresponsible legislation relating to gun ownership and use.
We owe it to each other to
Paul in KY
@slag: Just jump off a high cliff or something like that. It’ll do the trick.
liberal
@Talabama:
LOL.
Paul in KY
@thalarctos: I think you would probably mix it with something, if you were going that route.
Lojasmo
@Talabama:
Since gun suicide is the number one method, and train suicide almost never occurs, it seems that you are intent on a less than rigorous analysis of everything you discuss.
Please proceed governor.
Cassidy
@liberal: It’s very true. The type of handgun is irrelevant. Dead is dead regardless of the size of the bullet. So, you either ban them all, or you go through the motions of trying to determine how lethal one cartridge is over another and end up with banned guns in certain calibers, more proliferation of small caliber handguns that will inevitably become more powerful as ammo is made to suit, and exceptions for hunting, CCW holders, etc. who will still get to walk around with large caliber handguns because that’s how we roll.
Secondly, the type of gun is irrelevant. Take a loof at my example. The Ruger 10/22 is a completely innocuous, small, Semi-automatic rifle. It’s so small and cute that many a young American can claim that as the first rifle they ever fired. It’s cheap, reliable, and the exact opposite of a “scary assault rifle” that is typically the target of bans. Yet, it’s is highly lethal.
Cassidy
@liberal: This is true. It’s actually a kind of hunting subculture where you eschew those mamby-pamby rifles and go hunting with large caliber revolvers that shoot .454 Casull and other big game cartridges.
redshirt
If embryos had guns there would be less abortion. Arm the fetii!
redshirt
I listen to quite a bit of sports radio nowadays, and yes, anyone who called in on this subject yesterday was OUTRAGED! Forgetting the gun debate, I was struck at how OUTRAGED they were that they got lectured to. That was the main point of their anger – that here they were, watching football, and suddenly, LIBERAL TALKING POINTS!
It’s a sign of the Bubble, I think. They are so ensconced in their Fox Bubble that when something breaks into it, immediate outrage is the response, regardless of the subject.
Cheap Jim
@Talabama: Actually, ostracize means to drive away or to exile.
Persia
@Pb: Having said that – and that piece was un-researched flamebait – the comments are still fucking insane.
Whidby
@Anne Laurie:
The difference being that the correct use of cigarettes caused hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.
Given that there are at least 200 million guns in America, maybe over 300 million, its safe to say that 99.999% of firearms never cause a death.
I’m all for a rational discussion of how to lower crimes committed using guns, but that rationality begins with the acknowledgement that guns are not the problem.
Whidby
They are, like you said, just tools.
les
But…but…but
Which would be a wonderful thing, since far fewer criminals kill people with guns than “non-criminals.” Suicides, gang arguments, ground standers, pants pissing homeowners, conservatives (but I repeat myself), accidents…it’s ease of access to guns, not robbers and father-rapers and mother-stabbers that accounts for most gun deaths.
Cassidy
@Whidby: That’s a steaming pile of bullshit. But, it’s an interesting tell.
Whidby
@Cassidy: try harder.
Cassidy
@Whidby: No, no, you keep building that strawman. I’ll bring you a hat and shirt to go with it.
liberal
@Cassidy:
Not saying it’s not true. Saying that the relevance of some people using handguns to go hunting to the current debate is 0.000.
liberal
@Cassidy:
Lethality isn’t the issue, since they’re all pretty lethal, and in any case the distinguishing characteristic of a gun vs a knife is that there are simple defenses against the latter that aren’t available for the former.
The issue is concealment/surprise.
redshirt
The only way we’ll get any new meaningful gun control in America is African Americans and Latinos aggressively become gun owners, and brandish their weapons in public like Wingnuts. We’ll instantly hear new arguments from the Wingnuts for why we need to restrict gun ownership.
les
@redshirt:
I’ve been thinking we should form a liberal gunners group to go down to Florida and follow repubs and conservative assholes around, waiting for them to get pissed and speak frighteningly at us. And of course, stand our ground. About once might change things…
Cassidy
@liberal: You’re missing my point, but it doesn’t matter as we’re supporting the same side.
mapaghimagsik
one can say a handgun is just a tool. So is a hammer. But if I’m buying a hammer because I want to bash someone brains in, I’m arguably buying the hammer for the wrong reason.
I am a big supporter of the Second Amendment: if someone wants to have a musket or blend luck pistol at home, I have no problem with that.
Gretchen
@Lojasmo: I’m told by the same source who says antidepressants aren’t allowed in Japan, that train suicide is in fact the favored form of suicide, since they don’t have guns and they have a high rate of people who want to commit suicide. In fact, it’s so common they have standard procedures to respond to it and methods to try to prevent it. On the other hand, here in Kansas, we don’t have commuter trains so I’d have to go down to the train track and wait a few hours for something to come by, while I can drive to WalMart and get a gun within minutes.
Recall
@Talabama: From the NAS report you linked:
Gretchen
A firearm in the home makes a woman 5 times more likely to die of domestice violence. When domestic violence involves a gun, it is 12 times more likely to end in homicide.
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/12/03/1270841/bob-costas-jovan-belcher-gun-control/?mobile=wt
Mnemosyne
@redshirt:
Hey, it worked in California when the Black Panthers decided that California’s unrestricted right to carry guns in public applied to them, too. Reagan couldn’t sign that gun control law fast enough.
ETA: Here’s an article specifically about the Black Panthers and guns from the Atlantic.
Cassidy
@Gretchen: Stop assuming a women’s right to live is more important than a white man’s right to carry his metal
penisteddy bear. Because guns aren’t the problem. That’s so rational. And they’re only tools. Little nothingburger tools that spit out pieces of metal at high velocity when aimed at someone and the trigger pulled. But they’re only tools with no inherent lethality. See, just like your screwdriver.Cassidy
Yo moderator….howsabout some service here! :D
Paul in KY
@redshirt: I think you might be on to something…
Cassidy
@Gretchen: Stop assuming a women’s right to live is more important than a white man’s right to carry his metal teddy bear. Because guns aren’t the problem. That’s so rational. And they’re only tools. Little nothingburger tools that spit out pieces of metal at high velocity when aimed at someone and the trigger pulled. But they’re only tools with no inherent lethality. See, just like your screwdriver.
celticdragonchick
@Talabama:
Christ on a crutch.
Listen…I am a gun owner, and that includes two “assault weapons”, a Winchester.30-30, a bolt action .30-06, a semi auto .22 and a King’s 2nd land Pattern Brown Bess musket with bayonet.
I like guns.
Even I am not going to try and defend the notion that guns do not make killing and suicide easier.
They are designed to make killing easier!!
That is the whole fucking point of 500 years of handheld firearms development!
Otherwise, we would still be using sling stones, crossbows and Welsh longbows.
Modern firearms, combat types especially, are designed specifically to facilitate accuracy and ease of use even for inexperienced and untrained users. They can shoot very fast…as fast as muscles and thought allow. They can shoot through obstacles that would defeat a quarrel or similar projectile. All it takes is about 6 pounds of trigger pressure. A child can do it. The tragic results of that often make the news.
So don’t try to claim that all those folks who off their loved ones and themseves would just have found a baseball bat or a crowbar etc.
Improvised means are not nearly as effective, and the victims have a far greater chance of survival. Modern guns are the epitome of easy to use handheld mass destruction. That is what we made them to do.
Just sayin’…
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
I highly recommend people arm themselves, but they must become familiar with them by practicing at a range, and psyching themselves up for the moment of truth, wherein most people get shot with their own weapon, because they hesitate, and have it taken from them.
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: I could go either way as far as arming yourself goes. I don’t think it’s a necessity. It makes people feel better, but the best home defense is adequate lighting and a dog.
Personally, I like being armed, but I don’t carry in public and I know what I’m doing. Any guns I own are sttrictly for hobby and kept unloaded where little hands can’t explore.
DFH no.6
I remember reading a gun control post on Digby back sometime in the dark years of W’s ill-begotten reign, maybe even before John Cole had his road to Damascus change in ’05 (don’t read her blog so much anymore, but back then it was one of my main intertube lifesavers).
The gist of that post was that, unhappily, the argument over guns in America had been decisively lost by gun control advocates (primarily liberals), and it would likely be that way for a long time.
I thought that was the correct assessment – and pretty obvious, too – and if anything it has become even more cemented in our political reality since then.
No matter how many polls show a majority of Americans may be in favor of gun control, it is in fact a politically toxic position in most places in our fair land.
The NRA rules our world, and I don’t see that changing in my lifetime (or even my children’s or grandchildren’s lifetimes), no matter how many Columbines, Auroras, Gabby Giffords, Trayvon Martins, Jovan Belchers, ad infinitum.
Haydnseek
@Whidby: By that logic, we should increase the supply of guns until there are zero deaths caused by firearms. Brilliant.
Haydnseek
@redshirt: Exactly. When he was Governor of California, Saint Ronnie Reagan freaked out, and some significant firearms legislation was passed, because BLACK PANTHERS!!!
Haydnseek
@Mnemosyne: Damn, beat me to it! Well done.
whidgy
@Haydnseek:
Pace Mr. Lott, I don’t think that’s true.
But it does highlight the irrationality that surrounds the gun control debate on both sides.
thalarctos
@Yutsano: looking forward to it!
if guns kill people, matches cause arson
@Redshift: Or hung himself like my Uncle did. Funny thing is, my uncle had 5-6 guns he could have used instead, but chose to use a different tool.
People will always find tools of death… It is how they use them that matters.
My uncle and this Jovan guy used their tools incorrectly.
(Jovan could have stabbed his woman, than drove away from the stadium and into a wall at 90 mph using the tool commonly referred to as a “car”)
We need a 10 day waiting period on kitchen knives with recorded serial numbers to cut (no pun intended) down on knife murders. After all, Ted Bundy would not have been able to kill 30 people if he did not have a knife.
if guns kill people, matches cause arson
@MattR: Not really…take 500 aspirin or hang yourself. Moot point.
if guns kill people, matches cause arson
@Talabama:
+1 great points.
if guns kill people, matches cause arson
@Mino: HAHA Red stater with health insurance here…Fetish? no… Like the idea of protecting the gun-less Blue staters in case of civil war, economic collapse, foreign attack, government takeover, etc? Yes.
People who feel the way you do are going to be LOST in these situations. lol
if guns kill people, matches cause arson
@El Cid: Are we calling for legal action against the guy? NO!!! The worst thing I’ve seen is people calling for his job (I don’t agree) because it was the right message at the wrong place and time. Nice try though….
if guns kill people, matches cause arson
@Anne Laurie: There were knives in the kitchen, blunt objects all around, hands to strangle with, and fists at the ready as well. The gun didn’t cause this murder/suicide, the relationship issues and poor decision making of Jovan did.
if guns kill people, matches cause arson
@Anne Laurie: and if he wanted to kill her, her “chances” were no different. You are insinuating that if Jovan had used a chainsaw, his counterpart would have most likely lived versus a gun. REALLY? If he wanted to kill her, he would have. This much is painfully clear. So the solution is to ban all firearms, knives, chainsaws, poisons, blunt objects, cars, and anything else that can be used as a weapon?
Have you ever used safety scissors?