Two thirds of those deaths are suicides. Japan has a 20% suicide rate. The United States has a 10% suicide rate. Even though guns are banned in Japan, Japan's suicide rate is twice as high as ours. You can't stop people from killing themselves. That being said, the number of gun deaths (excluding suicides) is about 11,000. So, 11,000 is the number you really want to use.
Stop with the hand slapping and start using the death penalty. For example.... I read this morning that a baby died because its father bent it in half to stop if from crying. Bent it in half. Let that sink in a moment. Slap that ******* in front a firing squad (can I be one of the shooters please?); walk him up to the hangman's knot (can I hold the rope?); bend him in half on a gurney with rusty needles (can I be the one looking for a vein?). Unless of course he is supposed to sleep in a bed in a cell with three hots a day for the next 50 years on OUR dime?
Plenty of evidence exists, mind you, that finds a positive relationship between guns and suicide rates; e.g. Rodríguez Andrés & Hempstead (2011, Gun control and suicide: The impact of state firearm regulations in the United States, 1995–2004, Health Policy, 101(1): 95-103) write "Our empirical analysis suggest that firearms regulations which function to reduce overall gun availability have a significant deterrent effect on male suicide, while regulations that seek to prohibit high risk individuals from owning firearms have a lesser effect".
Our right to bear arms is even more relevant and important today than it was in the so-called "Wild" West. You can't understand this, as a foreigner who lives in a monarchy where being ruled is par for the course, but we actually treasure our freedoms and liberty. Gee thanks. I don't need your permission, though. Americans are overwhelmingly "responsible enough", and before you badmouth us you might want to own your own problems. You DO realize your rates of violent crime are far higher in the UK than it is in the US, right?
Why do brits try to tell us what to do or what they consider right or wrong even though they are not americans?
When these troll posts show up en masse they are normally without avatars. That's how you can tell. I guess you @BodiSatva never noticed.
There are numerous factors that impact on suicide rates. Gun prevalence, according to the majority of the available studies, is one.
Year after year, include our cousins in Australia with your observation. Damn nosy bunch that want us to be as miserable as them.
Wrong! The "militia" clause is an example of how the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" clause might be used.
Nope, but the empirical finding holds. Now there will be a reverse causation effect: e.g. "I am suicidal, I will therefore buy a gun". However, this isn't found to explain the relationship. There will be psychological factors at play, obviously. One suggestion is that, given we all have moments of despair, guns make it more likely that we suffer the outcomes from snap decisions (with unfortunately high risk of success).
Frankly, I'm fine with regulations restricting ordnance versus small-arms. For it to be done legitimately, however, a Constitutional amendment should be required; but our government has willingly violated its Constitutional parameters for the last century or more, so.... No, you're wrong. I have never seen any nation enact bans and seen any reduction in rates of crime, violence, or homicide. I'm also not myopically focused on so-called "gun deaths"; as a former law enforcement officer I have seen people killed with knives, rocks, bottles... even fists and feet. I am not so obsessed with one facet of criminal violence that I would deny honest people their ability to defend themselves from the depredations of the criminal underclass.
e.g. a suicidal person may say "I am suicidal, I will therefore buy a gun jump off bridge overdose on pills hang myself etc etc etc". Do you understand now?
You didn't grasp the point. Reverse causation would mean the 'more guns, more suicides' relationship is questionable. That notion, however, is rejected in the literature. We're therefore left with an empirical outcome that you cannot explain.
Please explain why Japan has a higher suicide rate (double) than the United States even though Japan has a total ban on guns??????
Already mentioned that there are multiple factors at play. Cultural differences makes international comparison more complex.
