Meaningless and irrelevant. If it is believed on the part of yourself that firearms have truly served to kill individuals, go about actually proving such. Present a list of names of individuals whose deaths can be directly attributed to firearms that were not handled by other individuals at the time, meaning the firearm discharged automatically of its own volition.
Even if such were factually correct, the obvious question of "so what?" must be asked with regard to the above. How many hundreds of millions of individuals died in wars that were fought before firearms ever existed? The human race has been killing itself off in the greatest numbers possible since its very beginning, and has been dedicated to creating ever-more efficient ways at killing the largest number of individuals possible, through whatever means possible. This trend is not going to stop if firearms are not available. Individuals are not going to suddenly stop murdering one another simply because they have to work harder at doing such.
"More Americans have died from gunshots in the last 50 years than in all of the wars in American history." https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/l...illed-guns-1968-all-u-s-wars-combined-n807156 That's very disturbing.
The same argument could be used for legalization of dangerous drugs. I oppose guns, illegal drugs, and tobacco.
the majority of all firearm-related deaths are suicides. Therefore they do not count. Only homicides count, and only homicides will be discussed.
How well has that opposition addressed the matter of illicit narcotic substances? The more the matter is opposed, the more the public demands to have free access to such, and will go out of its way to commit crimes to gain access to such. The number of deaths related to overdoses of such substances is only increasing, not decreasing.
Why don't they count? Lives lost to suicide matter. Gun ownership is a risk factor for suicide. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199208133270705 Therefore, access to guns should be limited.
Thank you. As a person with Mental Disability I care about others with similar condition. I was never violent or suicidal. But I do engage in harmful overeating.
Incorrect, rights shall not be limited because people cannot control themselves, that is what we have laws for.
Which indicates, anything you post should be taken with a grain of salt, you have clearly admitted you are not the norm in society, therefore since you are not, by your own admission, your thoughts should be considered out of the norm of society and taken as such. Exceptions don't rule in the US. .
Irrelevant to the discussion of illicit narcotic substances, such as cocaine, heroin, and others. There is absolutely no legal venue in the united states for the acquisition of such, and yet the number of overdoes-related deaths is only increasing despite their illegality. Why is such occurring? Why is there not a steady decrease due to their illegal nature?
Not when the subject pertains to homicides, and not when other effective means of committing suicide are ignored entirely by the one making such a claim. According to the findings, of Arthur Kellermann, the only individuals who are put at risk of ending their own existence with the use of a firearm, are from the same pool as those who are most likely to be killed with a firearm due to being engaged in criminal activity at the time. Those who live alone, who rent rather than who own homes, those who have an arrest record, those who have a criminal record, those who abuse alcohol or illicit narcotic substances, or those who have poor education. Meaning those who are most likely to go about using firearms for the purpose of ending their own existence, according to Arthur Kellermann, are those who cannot legally own firearms to begin with.
The findings of Arthur Kellermann show those who are most likely to use a firearm for the purpose of ending their own existence, are those who cannot legally own a firearm to begin with, due to disqualifying records.
Why is this thread even particularly relevant? For every example someone can scrape up showing that a 'legal' firearm saved someone's life, based on US domestic violence statistics there are hundreds more where they were used to take one. So yes, its great the owner was there to do what he/she did, full marks to them for what they did, their community should be grateful. But don't try and and build it up as some kind of grand justification for fire ownership, because if you do ..... then you also have to acknowledge every time a legally owned firearm is used to commit a crime - a circumstance that happens far more often than the one described in this post. One guy does something good - guaranteed 100 others will do something bad, just don't talk about it in polite company shall we. At the end of the day what justification for firearm ownership do you need? In the US you have the Constitutional right to own and carry firearms, end of story. No justification required (self or otherwise). Leave it at that.
Actually it's quite the opposite, it is estimated between 200,000 and 2,000,000 violent crimes are prevented with a legally owned firearm annually, which is much more than the 31,000 deaths mostly criminal deaths and suicides annually. You are correct none is needed but the anti's insist we must have a reason or surrender them in mass.
200,000 to 2 million??? Sorry the statistically spread (range) of that figure is so broad as to be almost meaningless. Where/how was the data collected?
The smaller number was from a project by the NSSF and the larger number is from the CDC. Personally based on the number of monthly media stories collected by the Heritage Foundation and the Armed Citizen the 200,000 is closer to reality, maybe a little higher as I have the feeling if a shot is not fired a lot of DGU's go unreported and that data is never collected. There was another study done, but I cannot find it right now that put the ratio 31,762 DGU's per unlawful use.
Yep a problem I've noted before - you could have many situations where a firearm was present and in part at least acted as a deterrent but nothing happens so there's no statistic to collect. By the same token though you can also have the opposite situation. You know all those hair raising near misses where someone 'almost' accidentally or deliberately shoots themselves or someone else but chance, commonsense or a third party intervenes to save the day - again with no official record being created. All you can do is assume they cancel each other out.