Number,of Americans killed by guns in 2012: 32,000. Center for Disease Control.
Number of Americans killed by terrorists in 2012: 10. Wall Street Journal.
Number,of Americans killed by guns in 2012: 32,000. Center for Disease Control. Number of Americans killed by terrorists in 2012: 10. Wall Street Journal.Half of those gun deaths are due to suicide, which is unrelated to guns (Japan has a suicide rate about 3-4X that of the United States for example). And similar amounts of people die in car accidents and from drunk driving each year as well.
Number,of Americans killed by guns in 2012: 32,000. Center for Disease Control. Number of Americans killed by terrorists in 2012: 10. Wall Street Journal.Half of those gun deaths are due to suicide, which is unrelated to guns (Japan has a suicide rate about 3-4X that of the United States for example). And similar amounts of people die in car accidents and from drunk driving each year as well. Also, on top of that, didn't Chicago have a higher murder rate than the country of Japan in 2011? Doesn't Chicago also have some of the strictest gun control laws in the USA? Renowned violence expert, Dr. James Gilligan has confirmed that the most direct cause for high rates of violence in a country is economic inequality, NOT the accessibility of a weapon.
Number,of Americans killed by guns in 2012: 32,000. Center for Disease Control. Number of Americans killed by terrorists in 2012: 10. Wall Street Journal.Half of those gun deaths are due to suicide, which is unrelated to guns (Japan has a suicide rate about 3-4X that of the United States for example). And similar amounts of people die in car accidents and from drunk driving each year as well. Half of those gun deaths are due to suicide, which is unrelated to guns (Japan has a suicide rate about 3-4X that of the United States for example). And similar amounts of people die in car accidents and from drunk driving each year as well. So that's a reason to keep them available to anyone who wants them? At least automobiles are not made with no other use in mind but to kill. A good percentage of those suicides could have been avoided if a gun were not handy and lethal. "Many ecologic studies covering multiple regions, states, or cities in the United States have also shown a strong association between rates of household gun ownership and rates of completed suicide — attributable, as found in the case–control studies, to the strong association between gun prevalence and gun suicide, without a counterbalancing association between gun-ownership levels and rates of nongun suicide. We recently examined the relationship between rates of household gun ownership and suicide in each of the 50 states for the period between 2000 and 2002.4 We used data on gun ownership from a large telephone survey (of more than 200,000 respondents) and controlled for rates of poverty, urbanization, unemployment, mental illness, and drug and alcohol dependence and abuse. Among men, among women, and in every age group (including children), states with higher rates of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm suicide and overall suicides. There was no association between firearm-ownership rates and nonfirearm suicides. To illustrate the main findings, we presented data for the 15 states with the highest levels of household gun ownership matched with the six states with the lowest levels (using only six so that the populations in both groups of states would be approximately equal)." http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923
Hi Lois,
I like this citation from your source even more:
Too many seem to believe that anyone who is serious enough about suicide to use a gun would find an equally effective means if a gun were not available. This belief is invalid.Attached the statistics table from the article to my posting.
So that's a reason to keep them available to anyone who wants them? At least automobiles are not made with no other use in mind but to kill. A good percentage of those suicides could have been avoided if a gun were not handy and lethal.The amount of suicides with guns doesn't really pertain to the gun issue. If a person wants to commit suicide they can, what they use to accomplish it is not important - unless it harms others, of course. It is impolite to the first responders, however.
I realize that people can also commit suicide by other means than with a gun, e.g., hanging, poison, jumping out a window, etc., however, it’s a bit more difficult to kill twenty other people by using those means. I get a kick out of the non sequitor arguments that the gun nuts keep coming up with. 
Occam
Number,of Americans killed by guns in 2012: 32,000. Center for Disease Control. Number of Americans killed by terrorists in 2012: 10. Wall Street Journal.Half of those gun deaths are due to suicide, which is unrelated to guns (Japan has a suicide rate about 3-4X that of the United States for example). And similar amounts of people die in car accidents and from drunk driving each year as well. Also, on top of that, didn't Chicago have a higher murder rate than the country of Japan in 2011? Doesn't Chicago also have some of the strictest gun control laws in the USA? Renowned violence expert, Dr. James Gilligan has confirmed that the most direct cause for high rates of violence in a country is economic inequality, NOT the accessibility of a weapon. How about England and Canada, then, which both have much lower rates of gun deaths than te US, and their demographics and economic equality are similar to ours? Chicago may have strict gun control laws but there is no international border to cross to get into Chicago. Anyone can get a gun anywhere else in the country and bring it in. Japan and England are islands and they have strict border controls, and few guns get in. Chicago is also part of the US gun culture. Having strict gun control doesn't lessen the effects of that overwhelming factor. Lois
So that's a reason to keep them available to anyone who wants them? At least automobiles are not made with no other use in mind but to kill. A good percentage of those suicides could have been avoided if a gun were not handy and lethal.The amount of suicides with guns doesn't really pertain to the gun issue. If a person wants to commit suicide they can, what they use to accomplish it is not important - unless it harms others, of course. It is impolite to the first responders, however. According to the citation I provided, the number of guns available does affect overall suicide rates. Where guns are not available, the number of suicides by any means go down, not just gun suicides.
Number,of Americans killed by guns in 2012: 32,000. Center for Disease Control. Number of Americans killed by terrorists in 2012: 10. Wall Street Journal.Half of those gun deaths are due to suicide, which is unrelated to guns (Japan has a suicide rate about 3-4X that of the United States for example). And similar amounts of people die in car accidents and from drunk driving each year as well. Also, on top of that, didn't Chicago have a higher murder rate than the country of Japan in 2011? Doesn't Chicago also have some of the strictest gun control laws in the USA? Renowned violence expert, Dr. James Gilligan has confirmed that the most direct cause for high rates of violence in a country is economic inequality, NOT the accessibility of a weapon. How about England and Canada, then, which both have much lower rates of gun deaths than te US, and their demographics and economic equality are similar to ours? Chicago may have strict gun control laws but there is no international border to cross to get into Chicago. Anyone can get a gun anywhere else in the country and bring it in. Japan and England are islands and they have strict border controls, and few guns get in. Chicago is also part of the US gun culture. Having strict gun control doesn't lessen the effects of that overwhelming factor. Lois I'll have to look at the data on Canada. Either way, isn't the UK considered the most violent country in the entire European region, with numbers of violence related crimes that our numbers pale in comparison to? Don't just focus on the "gun deaths". What about murders, robberies, and assaults? Inequality is a huge problem in the UK too.
Number,of Americans killed by guns in 2012: 32,000. Center for Disease Control. Number of Americans killed by terrorists in 2012: 10. Wall Street Journal.Half of those gun deaths are due to suicide, which is unrelated to guns (Japan has a suicide rate about 3-4X that of the United States for example). And similar amounts of people die in car accidents and from drunk driving each year as well. Also, on top of that, didn't Chicago have a higher murder rate than the country of Japan in 2011? Doesn't Chicago also have some of the strictest gun control laws in the USA? Renowned violence expert, Dr. James Gilligan has confirmed that the most direct cause for high rates of violence in a country is economic inequality, NOT the accessibility of a weapon. How about England and Canada, then, which both have much lower rates of gun deaths than te US, and their demographics and economic equality are similar to ours? Chicago may have strict gun control laws but there is no international border to cross to get into Chicago. Anyone can get a gun anywhere else in the country and bring it in. Japan and England are islands and they have strict border controls, and few guns get in. Chicago is also part of the US gun culture. Having strict gun control doesn't lessen the effects of that overwhelming factor. Lois I'll have to look at the data on Canada. Either way, isn't the UK considered the most violent country in the entire European region, with numbers of violence related crimes that our numbers pale in comparison to? Don't just focus on the "gun deaths". What about murders, robberies, and assaults? Inequality is a huge problem in the UK too. Yes but they apparently know better than to arm the violent ones, unlike in the US. No matter how violent they may be, they aren't committing mass murder with military style weapons, which goes on in the United States several times a year, every year, with no end in sight. Here, I've done your research on Canada for you: The risk of death by gunshot has been cut in half in Canada and is far smaller than in the United States, Statistics Canada says. In a study issued on Monday, the federal agency notes that Canadian gun-control laws have been stiffened in recent decades and gun registration has been made compulsory, but it draws no conclusions about the cause of the falling death toll. It says that 816 people — 767 males and 49 females — died of firearms-related injuries in Canada in 2002, the most recent year examined in the study. This represented 2.6 deaths per 100,000 population, down from 5.9 per 100,000 in 1979, it said. Among males, the 2002 rate was 4.9 deaths per 100,000, down from 10.6 in 1979. Among females, it was 0.3, down from 1.2. In a cross-border comparison for the year 2000, Statistics Canada says the risk of firearms death was more than three times as great for American males as for Canadian males and seven times as great for American females as for Canadian females. Because more of the U.S. deaths were homicides (as opposed to suicides or accidental deaths), the U.S. rate of gun homicide was nearly eight times Canada's, the agency says. Homicides accounted for 38 per cent of deaths involving guns in the United States and 18 per cent in Canada. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2005/06/28/gun-deaths050628.html Stay in Canada.
Stay in Canada.I don't think you're understanding my point though. If the real issue is inequality, then just trying to remove guns doesn't solve the issue. Violence will still increase. Has not Canada enjoyed a lot more equality than the US until recent years? If so, then those numbers still support my point: inequality makes societies more violent. All this talk about guns, in my opinion, is really beside the point. The US is one of the most stressed and unequal countries in the developed world. Violence is going to happen. Knowing this, I'd rather have something to protect my family with.
It is true that income inequality is associated with more violence as well as a host of other health and social problems. It is also true that higher per capita gun ownership is associated with higher rates of homicide. If we were able to effectively address one and only one of these two problems, I would suggest that the clear choice would be to address income inequality.
BTW, countries with left-leaning legislatures tend to have less economic inequality.
Double post. Sorry.
It is true that income inequality is associated with more violence as well as a host of other health and social problems. It is also true that higher per capita gun ownership is associated with higher rates of homicide. If we were able to effectively address one and only one of these two problems, I would suggest that the clear choice would be to address income inequality. BTW, countries with left-leaning legislatures tend to have less economic inequality.Agreed.
It is true that income inequality is associated with more violence as well as a host of other health and social problems. It is also true that higher per capita gun ownership is associated with higher rates of homicide. If we were able to effectively address one and only one of these two problems, I would suggest that the clear choice would be to address income inequality. BTW, countries with left-leaning legislatures tend to have less economic inequality.It is not accurate to presume Canada is sufficiently 'left'-leaning as you may think. First of all, for the last decade, we've had a conservative government (called, the "Conservatives") who is as right-winged and protestant as George Bush. The only big difference that distinguishes us (not considering the 'formal' name of our type of democracy = Constitutional Monarchy) is the fact that we have instituted assured medical care for most significant needs. But this also varies within provinces because health care is actually handled on the Provincial level. Just a a note: we spend less per capita on our health care than the U.S. which I was at first surprised at. (But let's just leave that for a different topic) Equity differences certainly do have an impact on some suicide and homicide rates but Canadians have the same relative imbalances that the Americans do. Both of us also have means of helping out those on the very bottom -- just in slightly different ways. Whether you only had an exclusive option to place your concern for inequality or gun violence should not affect your decision whether to pay attention to it or not because that is not the actual case and so is irrelevant. [Edit = bolded my point]
It is true that income inequality is associated with more violence as well as a host of other health and social problems. It is also true that higher per capita gun ownership is associated with higher rates of homicide. If we were able to effectively address one and only one of these two problems, I would suggest that the clear choice would be to address income inequality. BTW, countries with left-leaning legislatures tend to have less economic inequality.It is not accurate to presume Canada is sufficiently 'left'-leaning as you may think. First of all, for the last decade, we've had a conservative government (called, the "Conservatives") who is as right-winged and protestant as George Bush. The only big difference that distinguishes us (not considering the 'formal' name of our type of democracy = Constitutional Monarchy) is the fact that we have instituted assured medical care for most significant needs. But this also varies within provinces because health care is actually handled on the Provincial level. Just a a note: we spend less per capita on our health care than the U.S. which I was at first surprised at. (But let's just leave that for a different topic) Equity differences certainly do have an impact on some suicide and homicide rates but Canadians have the same relative imbalances that the Americans do. Both of us also have means of helping out those on the very bottom -- just in slightly different ways. Whether you only had an exclusive option to place your concern for inequality or gun violence should not affect your decision whether to pay attention to it or not because that is not the actual case and so is irrelevant. [Edit = bolded my point] What I'm saying is that inequality explains the majority of a developed country's violence, not just "some" of it. Secondly, it's my understanding that Canada's lean to the right has been much more gradual than the US.
What I'm saying is that inequality explains the majority of a developed country's violence, not just "some" of it.That's an acceptable likelihood. But does it imply that given two identical economic conditions of inequality, would the difference of personal gun possession affect in one to the other causing differences in statistical death rates?
Secondly, it's my understanding that Canada's lean to the right has been much more gradual than the US.Whether this is true or not, it is irrelevant to the issue. Are you presuming that given the above ideal comparison (One U.S.A. with the present gun laws VS another identical U.S.A. with a prohibition of personal ownership) , there would certainly be no differences in death rates?
What I'm saying is that inequality explains the majority of a developed country's violence, not just "some" of it.That's an acceptable likelihood. But does it imply that given two identical economic conditions of inequality, would the difference of personal gun possession affect in one to the other causing differences in statistical death rates?
Secondly, it's my understanding that Canada's lean to the right has been much more gradual than the US.Whether this is true or not, it is irrelevant to the issue. Are you presuming that given the above ideal comparison (One U.S.A. with the present gun laws VS another identical U.S.A. with a prohibition of personal ownership) , there would certainly be no differences in death rates? I think you're missing my point. I'm not just talking about gun related deaths. I'm talking about violence in general. I'm trying to zoom this discussion out a bit to see what may or may not be the overarching issues here. And is inequality in the USA and Canada the same? I was under the impression that it was not. My readings have led me to believe that inequality was much higher here in the States than in Canada. I do realize that the inequality gap between Canada and the USA is slowly closing, but does that mean that both of our economic conditions are now "identical"? I'm not arguing with you. I'm just trying to get some clarification here.
I think you're missing my point. I'm not just talking about gun related deaths. I'm talking about violence in general. I'm trying to zoom this discussion out a bit to see what may or may not be the overarching issues here. And is inequality in the USA and Canada the same? I was under the impression that it was not. My readings have led me to believe that inequality was much higher here in the States than in Canada. I do realize that the inequality gap between Canada and the USA is slowly closing, but does that mean that both of our economic conditions are now "identical"? I'm not arguing with you. I'm just trying to get some clarification here.It's okay to 'argue' here (argue => discuss or debate an issue with rational or logical reasons). For the most part, I think people's emotional nature here is understood only as heightened interest or passion to communicate. I don't take offense from anything you've said or could say in the least. Outside of forums is another matter...(some people confuse debating with aggressive confrontation.) Economic differences has always been understood to be the major issue and cause for most problems. Solving economic differences is burdened with way more complexity than dealing with some of the more specific expedient issues, like gun control. Also, although economic differences is a big causation, even if this could somehow be solved, gun use for violence would not necessarily be solved because we still have other environmental and genetic differences that would just replace itself as major causes. That is, people within the same comfort of wealth still have other major imbalanced differences to be conflicted towards one another with. For example, the major police issues that supersede all others are the domestic related ones. If everyone had the same infinite wealth, we'd only be left with more time to concentrate on our other differences more.