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On December 21 2012 02:04 Focuspants wrote: [quote]
"The Harvard School of Mental Health just published the results of a study that examined the relationship between household firearms ownership and the rate of suicide. According to the study suicide among people 45 years of age and younger suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States. Among the 50 states in the United States, those with higher rates of household gun ownership had higher rates of suicide among children, women and men.
It is important to understand, according to the study, that the higher rates of suicide among those who own guns has to do with the fact that guns are much more lethal than other methods of attempting suicide. What is troubling about this is that suicide attempts are viewed as a desperate call for help among those who are depressed or mentally ill with a psychotic illness. The rate of successful suicide completions is far less for people who use other methods than using a gun. For example, 75% of all suicide attempts are by the use of drugs. These people are found alive 97% of the time. Those who succeed in using drugs to attempt suicide are successful only 3% of the time. By contrast, more than 90% of all suicide attempts by use of firearms are successful. The bottom line is that anyone using a gun to commit suicide is not likely to have their call for help heard and responded to before its too late."
That is all you need to know. There is a chance to receive help if you survive. You don't survive if you use a gun. It is a waste of a potentially salvageable life.
Again, you are wanting to deal with the symptom, not the cause. Taking away guns would decrease the amount of total successful suicides? But what about dealing with why people want to commit suicides? Unless you think there is no issue there -- suicide attempts will happen no matter what you do and there is no value in trying to deal with this issue?
So basically we end up with a lot more of people, who probably happen to have mental issues, but of no way with trying to cope with this? So we just assign someone to watch them 24/7? Or hope that the 3% chance of success decreases or holds up over infinity time?
In a lot of cases there is no way to help the person before he attempts a suicide, because he hides that anything is wrong. So by eliminating guns from the equation you allow that cause to be discovered and treated. You are assuming there is a way to treat the cause beforehand. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. In the latter case lack of guns allows possibly saving that person.
You are saying there is no way to discover/treat this issue before hand? So then why is it that some countries have prevailing instances of suicide than others? Certain societal/cultural norms yield higher risks of suicide -- this is a common understanding in psychology and other professions.
If you don't believe there is a cure/preventive way of treating potential suicides, what the hell is the point of "discovering" people who failed to commit suicide via drugs? Are we going to assign people to watch them 24/7 for the rest of their life? Even your logic implies there is some way to treat this, so why not start with that?
And your solution DOES NOT address the issue I brought up in another post. Not every one in suicide is looking for a quick out.
Read my post and then tell me where did I say or imply things you are accusing me of saying. I never said it is never possible to discover the issue beforehand. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. Cure does not equal preventative treatment. Preventative treatment means beforehand, cure means whenever. So again you are lying about what I said as I never said anything about not believing in cure. If the person fails the attempt we can cure him since we know now that he has a problem. This is impossible in many cases to know beforehand even using all epidemiological data about risk factors, because those are statistical and thus cannot tell you exactly who actually suffers from what. It only allows you some measure of targeted preventative actions, but it will never allow you to accurately pinpoint all of those people (I am talking never as in in a near to medium future). Also I never presented it as a solution to anything I just pointed out that if guns are not present, many people attempting suicide can be saved and no preventative action will have similar effect. Is it a good policy in general ? That is another question as then we need to consider issue other than only mental health. But purely from the standpoint of suicides, getting rid of the guns from society would save a lot of people.
You are not understanding what I'm saying. So to make it simple for you:
Even if a policy with no guns saves people with a deeper issue, what's the point? If there is a way to prevent these things besides taking away guns, why not try it?
It seems it is you who does not understand as that objection makes absolutely no sense considering what I wrote. To reiterate : No such way exists for many of those cases as there is no possible action before the suicide attempt and after it they are dead due to presence of guns. There is nothing that you can do as those cases are inevitable without some technology that we can only dream about for a long time. And in presence of guns those inevitable cases will have high mortality.
I don't know if you are just running around in circles on purpose so you don't have to admit you don't have an answer or you really don't understand.
-I am not disagreeing that someone who attempting suicide by a gun is going to have a higher success rate. You would to dumb to argue with this. -What is the merit of "saving" someone temporarily by taking a "higher rate of success" item from them if you can't help them in the long-term? Unless you believe that there is something inherently good about just saving someone temporarily. I don't think you believe this, so your logic implies there is merit in saving someone because you can help rehabilitate them. In this case, why not start with "preventive rehabilitation," whatever that is? -As for "early detection" of suicide attempts, I already addressed this. Some cultures yield higher suicide attempts than others. There is a reason for this. Of course, we don't have it all figured out -- and that is the point. We need to try. We might not even have to "detect it early" if we can just help fix the dumb shit in our culture that makes people want to commit suicide in the first place.
Just because you take the tool away doesn't mean someone isn't going to come up with a tool of their own.
Ok now I am sure that you cannot read. I already said that cure DOES NOT EQUAL prevention. So the merit of saving the person temporarily is in the fact that after that we know there is a problem and can possibly cure that person. We cannot cure him beforehand as we do not know he has a problem. Is that simple logic that I already explained too complicated for you still ?
EDIT: Large percentage of suicides have internal triggers, you cannot prevent them by changing "culture". Again not in the near future.
It seems you don't have a good understanding of social science and psychology. If culture plays a big impact in acceptable and unacceptable social norms (and it is widely accepted that it does) we are not talking about a cure like some sort of magical pill. If we make what things that should be acceptable acceptable and things unacceptable unacceptable we can help fix a lot of this garbage. Many professions are based on this foundation. If your last sentence is right it makes those professions moot.
It seems you do not understand the difference between large percentage and all. In all your statements you think in black and white. The reality is that there is not one solution to everything. There are suicides that can be prevented by changing cultural attitudes, but there are suicides that cannot. And there is a lot of the latter ones.
On December 22 2012 07:28 biology]major wrote: why waste a cop at every school, just teach volunteers (staff and teachers) with carry permits the basics to guard schools. The whole point of "concealed" carry is so that the weapon is completely hidden, and people actually don't know about it UNTIL shit goes down. You would literally need a cop in perfect position in every entrance to prevent these catastrophic acts from occurring. NRA is getting a lot of flack, mostly because they are guarding their own financial interests, but ironically they are right. A good guy with a gun is what is needed to stop a bad guy with a gun. Unfortunately cops are useless and are almost always out of reach to actually do anything. Their job is to respond and report, more than it is to "save" the day. A world where people are willing to be educated and defend themselves is the absolute worst kind for a criminal.
There is something inherently wrong with loading school full of children with adults full of concealed weapons...
If you don't see that, I don't even know where to begin.
inherently wrong? It comes from our constitutional rights, and it is in the name of defense and protection. Children will not even be aware of concealed weapons. You just show me you have no faith in humanity, and believe that we are not capable of acting responsibly with justice and peace in mind. However, I believe that with some adequate training, simple psych evals or background checks we can act responsibly as a society to stop violence, because cops can't.
You just show that you do not see the reality. Reality is people are sloppy and no training and psych evals will change that. There will always be a teacher with a gun that will leave it in place accessible to kids and then all the bad things that follow it will happen. Not even talking about teacher with mental issues that will actually use it, but that is more rare and can be mostly prevented by psych evals (even though again no certainty even there). Your constitutional rights are just a piece of paper and frankly are used too often instead of actual ethical argument.
On December 22 2012 13:13 X3GoldDot wrote: eh if people were murderers and nobody had guns they would just use knives and accomplish the same task, in the end killing will happen all the time imho
Nope, killing 20 children with a knife is a WHOLE LOT more difficult than doing so with a gun. The ease of killing someone with a gun is a big part of the problem.
Watch from 35:35 on, Jesse Venture destroys the gun control/ban debate. If it's not clear to these people by now after all these arguments, then they simply are just choosing not to.
Seriously, you guys in america are afraid, that the goverment will opress you and use the military against you? First of all. That's not realistic at all. But IF... they would do that. You think a few texans with semi-automatic guns would be able to form a resistance against the biggest and strongest army in the world.
Why wouldn't they be able to? A few people in Afghanistan and Iraq Can do so with a couple of rusty AK-47's, IED's, and children. Why wouldn't we, having access to more stuff, be able to be a bigger thorn in the side if we were oppressed by our own government. You guys think its crazy that we would be scared of what our government would do to us, just look what they do to other people.
Watch from 35:35 on, Jesse Venture destroys the gun control/ban debate. If it's not clear to these people by now after all these arguments, then they simply are just choosing not to.
Seriously, you guys in america are afraid, that the goverment will opress you and use the military against you? First of all. That's not realistic at all. But IF... they would do that. You think a few texans with semi-automatic guns would be able to form a resistance against the biggest and strongest army in the world.
Why wouldn't they be able to? A few people in Afghanistan and Iraq Can do so with a couple of rusty AK-47's, IED's, and children. Why wouldn't we, having access to more stuff, be able to be a bigger thorn in the side if we were oppressed by our own government. You guys think its crazy that we would be scared of what our government would do to us, just look what they do to other people.
Watch from 35:35 on, Jesse Venture destroys the gun control/ban debate. If it's not clear to these people by now after all these arguments, then they simply are just choosing not to.
Seriously, you guys in america are afraid, that the goverment will opress you and use the military against you? First of all. That's not realistic at all. But IF... they would do that. You think a few texans with semi-automatic guns would be able to form a resistance against the biggest and strongest army in the world.
Why wouldn't they be able to? A few people in Afghanistan and Iraq Can do so with a couple of rusty AK-47's, IED's, and children. Why wouldn't we, having access to more stuff, be able to be a bigger thorn in the side if we were oppressed by our own government. You guys think its crazy that we would be scared of what our government would do to us, just look what they do to other people.
Watch from 35:35 on, Jesse Venture destroys the gun control/ban debate. If it's not clear to these people by now after all these arguments, then they simply are just choosing not to.
Seriously, you guys in america are afraid, that the goverment will opress you and use the military against you? First of all. That's not realistic at all. But IF... they would do that. You think a few texans with semi-automatic guns would be able to form a resistance against the biggest and strongest army in the world.
Why wouldn't they be able to? A few people in Afghanistan and Iraq Can do so with a couple of rusty AK-47's, IED's, and children. Why wouldn't we, having access to more stuff, be able to be a bigger thorn in the side if we were oppressed by our own government. You guys think its crazy that we would be scared of what our government would do to us, just look what they do to other people.
Yeah, look at what they do to other people in completely different cultural, economic, and political settings!.. The likelyhood of the US falling into something like that.......
Let's just say it's borderline paranoid to think something like that would happen on the US right now. I don't understand how can you guys live in such fear of pretty much anything.
The right to bear arms is critical to maintain a free society. Not because hunting is fun, or because if some creep wants to rob / murder / rape you it's better to defend yourself then it is to be a victim but simply because there is no more absolute check on the tyranny of the state than a well armed citizenry. In the last century over a hundred million people were murdered by their own governments. It couldn't happen here? Why not? What makes our culture so special, so unique, that what has happened in Cambodia, China, Russia, Germany, Italy, Cuba and East Timor could not happen here?
And I'll say one more thing - if the Jews had guns and wouldn't so trusting in the government, maybe they never would have been shipped off on the trains. Maybe it's not a great idea to just allow yourself to be disarmed and trust on those in authority to protect you. Maybe it's a good idea to be a man, arm yourself to the teeth and take care of yourself.
On December 22 2012 10:55 AmericanNightmare wrote: As someone who will have children in public school soon.. I would choose a school that allowed armed teacher in the class. I do not believe that they would pull them out to settle down wild children because unlike more than half of you irrational people.. I have faith in people to do what's right..
...are you serious? If you had "faith in people to do what's right" then why the fuck would you even need guns? Dumbest thing I've read today.
In case they don't... The dumbest thing I've read today are several post on here.. where people think they fully can comprehend something based solely on something they read and never slightly personal experience.. I've known lots of teacher in my lifetime who I would trust them to look after my child gun or not... If I'd trust them with that much... I don't see why a gun would matter.. people understand that a child left with me will be in the "presence" of firearms.. AND the child will never know it OR be in danger from it.. AND STILL PEOPLE DO IT..
I would gamble my kids life on that the gun the teacher was concealing would be used to protect his life before it would be used haphazardly to kill him or anyone else.. or a crazed persons gun kill him.. I would really do it.. BECAUSE the teachers I either know or known have all demonstrated to be of excellent character.. The gun owners I know have demonstrated to be of excellent character.. A teacher who are proven trustworthy and stable should be allowed to carry.
If you are basing this idea on teacher you know/knew .. (I'm assuming from china) then I'm truly sorry for the people who educate(d) you..
OK so you make it a requirement for all teachers in the US to carry guns in order to make schools safer. By that logic shouldn't you also require ushers and ticket clerks at movie theaters to carry guns since there was a shooting there too. Also there was a shooting at a mall so perhaps all mall staff should be required to carry guns too? Post office staff? Where does it end, with every adult in the US walking around with concealed carry? Sounds like the wild west to me. You better hope none of those people are having a really bad day or have some undiagnosed mental problems.
So.. the kiwi way of arguing is to take a fraction of what your opposition says... blow is out of proportion and run with it like you stole it? I never said I want to take a red wagon filled with guns to a school and force teachers to use them... reread what I said... could you be having a bad day.. or possibly something undiagnosed..
Congratulations... you have just proven you have nothing to add to this conversation other then your ability to misread and counter with crazy..
this is really fascinating. Are Americans so fearfull of their own government, that they always have to declare the highest mistrust in saying, the second i dont like u anymore i will, i will arm myself.
isnt this also a qustion about the society, are Americans so fearfull of their own society in order to mistrust, not just some people, but everyone? Did i miss something or shouldnt, the government act in a way society wants.
Isnt it crazy that those mass murderers just take that right? they feel betrayed by society, arm themself and do something incredibly stupid, every weapon-lover proclaims to have a right to?
It is the most self-centered view, about only me knows whats right and wrong. By all means no one can claim that.
I did not wake up one morning with nothing to do so I figure I'd just not trust my government.. The mistrust grew slowly as I began to notice and learn things.. It's not that I don't like my government.. It's just that I don't trust them to do what right.. because they've proven they won't..
No one has a right to blast citizens in public.. and no pro-gun owner will ever say they.. When the U.S. government allows a crazy to kill millions of people (like germany did) then I might swing to your side of the fence.. People with great power should never be completely trust without a second thought..
Watch from 35:35 on, Jesse Venture destroys the gun control/ban debate. If it's not clear to these people by now after all these arguments, then they simply are just choosing not to.
Seriously, you guys in america are afraid, that the goverment will opress you and use the military against you? First of all. That's not realistic at all. But IF... they would do that. You think a few texans with semi-automatic guns would be able to form a resistance against the biggest and strongest army in the world.
Why wouldn't they be able to? A few people in Afghanistan and Iraq Can do so with a couple of rusty AK-47's, IED's, and children. Why wouldn't we, having access to more stuff, be able to be a bigger thorn in the side if we were oppressed by our own government. You guys think its crazy that we would be scared of what our government would do to us, just look what they do to other people.
There are two issues with that argument.
First, if the government does not have major support from the population it is unrealistic that any such scenario would even arise as they would not have full support from the army either. And if they have support from big chunk of population than your guns are worthless against the army.
Second, those guns can in the same way be used to actually help suppress liberty and freedom. Just like in Germany you can use armed groups as political paramilitary to oppress minorities more easily. This as actually what happens in many countries and them having guns won't help them as they are minorities.
In modern age the defense from government argument for arming population is completely nonsensical as they cannot stand against the army. Iraq and Afghanistan are irrelevant as the uprisings are actually losing and internal oppression has completely different mechanisms than external one, especially in democratic countries.
Watch from 35:35 on, Jesse Venture destroys the gun control/ban debate. If it's not clear to these people by now after all these arguments, then they simply are just choosing not to.
Hahaha this guy just comes of like an idiot and he's not destroying any discussions.
"Look at germany, italy, spain... i think the facts are indisputable." "No" <-- You see that this is not an argument?
Seriously, you guys in america are afraid, that the goverment will opress you and use the military against you? First of all. That's not realistic at all. But IF... they would do that. You think a few texans with semi-automatic guns would be able to form a resistance against the biggest and strongest army in the world.
Furthermore, if you are really scared of the government turning on you, what you SHOULD be doing is lobby to decrease your spending on the military. You could decrease the amount of evil government guys you have to fight by a large amount, without ever firing a single shot. Without ever being in danger. If you are really scared of the government oppression, this is what you should care most about. Not gun control or whatever. Every cent you reduce the military budget by now is a cent you don't have to fight in your inevitable rightful struggle for freedom lateron.
Government is evil. It is the only organization in society that obtains revenue not through trade, exchange or other peaceful voluntary means but rather it obtains revenue explicitly through the threat of violence (coercion). If you or I did the same thing it would be evil; hence when the state does it the state is evil.
On December 23 2012 01:51 TerribleNoobling wrote: The right to bear arms is critical to maintain a free society. Not because hunting is fun, or because if some creep wants to rob / murder / rape you it's better to defend yourself then it is to be a victim but simply because there is no more absolute check on the tyranny of the state than a well armed citizenry. In the last century over a hundred million people were murdered by their own governments. It couldn't happen here? Why not? What makes our culture so special, so unique, that what has happened in Cambodia, China, Russia, Germany, Italy, Cuba and East Timor could not happen here?
And I'll say one more thing - if the Jews had guns and wouldn't so trusting in the government, maybe they never would have been shipped off on the trains. Maybe it's not a great idea to just allow yourself to be disarmed and trust on those in authority to protect you. Maybe it's a good idea to be a man, arm yourself to the teeth and take care of yourself.
That is complete nonsense. What causes the rise of totalitarian states is poverty, lack of democratic/civic traditions and instability. It is even more improbable that government will go totalitarian in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia,..... than in US. And they all have less to nearly no guns. And guns won't save US if they fall into deep poverty and instability. When totalitarian government rises it has to have control of the army and at least big chunk of population. Against that small arms are useless.
If Jews had guns nothing would change. Government would first pass laws to remove them and at that point nobody would want to risk his life to oppose that. But even if they did, such minority cannot at all oppose determined majority. They would just die sooner in uprisings. At the point when trains were coming they did not trust the government anymore. If they knew exactly what is awaiting them they might rise up. But then they would end up exactly as Jews in Warsaw ghetto uprising.
On December 23 2012 02:14 TerribleNoobling wrote: Government is evil. It is the only organization in society that obtains revenue not through trade, exchange or other peaceful voluntary means but rather it obtains revenue explicitly through the threat of violence (coercion). If you or I did the same thing it would be evil; hence when the state does it the state is evil.
Did you forget about robbers, thiefs, organized crime ? Even different societal groups often do that, less so in stable countries as government actually prevents them from using violence (lynching and similar is what I am alluding to). Government is the only one that is legally allowed to do that, there are plenty who do that illegally. And government is allowed to do that by mandate from society, weaker or stronger one. In all first world countries that mandate is very strong and thus any complaints on that front are ridiculous.
EDIT: Plus your logic is broken in your last inference. It is like saying X can run 100m in 9.6s. Thus everyone can. Your generalization does not follow from your premises.
You are incredibly delusional dude, not only that, the world isn't some 1984 dystopia. The government isn't out to get us, furthermore, a few small arms aren't going to stop a government from steamrolling you. The reason guns should be heavily limited in America is because of the ease of getting them, we can no longer bear arms against a government of our magnitude.
yeah that's a good point mcc... the german's developing a totalitarian state? That could never happen!
Did you forget about robbers, thiefs, organized crime ?
Exactly my point. The government is evil, much like robbers, thiefs (sic) and organized crime. They are akin to someone who mugs you in the street. Actually they are worse, since the mugger does not deign to lecture you as to the necessity of his theft.
And yes, the government would of course seek to disarm the Jews before murdering them all. In fact that's one of the first thing Hitler and Stalin both did when they assumed power - they took away everyone's guns. Because they knew they would be powerless after that. I just don't understand why you want to do what they did.
You are incredibly delusional dude, not only that, the world isn't some 1984 dystopia. The government isn't out to get us, furthermore, a few small arms aren't going to stop a government from steamrolling you. The reason guns should be heavily limited in America is because of the ease of getting them, we can no longer bear arms against a government of our magnitude.
So because we could never compete with our government should they ever possibly turn against it's people.. we should just roll over and allow them infringe on our rights now?
Slowly our ability to defend ourselves against the government has been taken away from us because people like you are to delusional to understand... The government might not be "out to get us" but from speaking from personal experience.. it's certainly not trying to help us..
You can try and take these few lines I've posted and dissect them to try and understand what kind of person I am.. but you'll never be able to because we were brought up in different areas.. taught by different people... learned through different means..
I've learned through the years.. my first lesson was when I was 5.. that you never take what people in power say at face value.. and Law Enforcement should always be questioned..
On December 23 2012 02:43 TerribleNoobling wrote: yeah that's a good point mcc... the german's developing a totalitarian state? That could never happen!
If you do not see the difference between current Germany and the one in 1930's then it is your problem. Germany in 1930's perfectly supports what I said and you ignored, that totalitarian regime's come into power due to poverty and lack of democratic traditions and mostly with support of the population.
Did you forget about robbers, thiefs, organized crime ?
Exactly my point. The government is evil, much like robbers, thiefs (sic) and organized crime. They are akin to someone who mugs you in the street. Actually they are worse, since the mugger does not deign to lecture you as to the necessity of his theft.
No that is not your point. That is you taking sentences out of context. I followed that by pointing out what is the difference between government and entities mentioned in the quote. You ignored that, because you prefer dishonest debating techniques.
On December 23 2012 02:43 TerribleNoobling wrote: And yes, the government would of course seek to disarm the Jews before murdering them all. In fact that's one of the first thing Hitler and Stalin both did when they assumed power - they took away everyone's guns. Because they knew they would be powerless after that. I just don't understand why you want to do what they did.
I know that, I pointed out that not giving up the weapons would just mean they would die sooner.
Watch from 35:35 on, Jesse Venture destroys the gun control/ban debate. If it's not clear to these people by now after all these arguments, then they simply are just choosing not to.
Seriously, you guys in america are afraid, that the goverment will opress you and use the military against you? First of all. That's not realistic at all. But IF... they would do that. You think a few texans with semi-automatic guns would be able to form a resistance against the biggest and strongest army in the world.
Why wouldn't they be able to? A few people in Afghanistan and Iraq Can do so with a couple of rusty AK-47's, IED's, and children. Why wouldn't we, having access to more stuff, be able to be a bigger thorn in the side if we were oppressed by our own government. You guys think its crazy that we would be scared of what our government would do to us, just look what they do to other people.
Yeah. How did that work out for the people in afghanistan and Iraq? Not all that great as far as I remember.
And also. Why wouldn't they do that to their own people? Are you serious? Why would they is the much more obvious question!
On December 23 2012 02:14 TerribleNoobling wrote: Government is evil. It is the only organization in society that obtains revenue not through trade, exchange or other peaceful voluntary means but rather it obtains revenue explicitly through the threat of violence (coercion). If you or I did the same thing it would be evil; hence when the state does it the state is evil.
Srsly. I hope you are trolling. Or no wait. maybe u ar a genius. Maybe we should give up any form of government and just turn to anarchy and chaos. The joker approves!
EPT
