The New American Politics thread

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

The 406,000 dead due to gun violence number is misleading as it is also including suicides and justifiable homicide.

But leave it to CNN to BS viewers who they know can't be bothered to look into facts themselves, while they sensationalize the issue with Hollywood-esque promos using bang bang sound bites and dark art to paint a dystopian world while we have a countdown clock for Obamas big interview with Cooper.

The number of suicides dwindle when guns are removed...

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

The number of suicides dwindle when guns are removed...

Not even close to the truth. Suicide numbers remain constant no matter what type of controls are in place, the method however changes.

When I'm at home at my computer I'll show some stats that proved this in Canada. Long gun registry, it's enforcement and abolishment proved to have no effect on overall suicide rates, people just used rope/co2 or whatever they could use to get the job done.

[ResAlien]

Ok, what number of that 406,000 should we discount due to justifiable homicides and suicide? We should make sure we whittle it down to a more accurate number.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

The 406,000 dead due to gun violence number is misleading as it is also including suicides and justifiable homicide.

But leave it to CNN to BS viewers who they know can't be bothered to look into facts themselves, while they sensationalize the issue with Hollywood-esque promos using bang bang sound bites and dark art to paint a dystopian world while we have a countdown clock for Obamas big interview with Cooper.

Oh right those "good guys with guns". They always help out.

[2Stonedbirds]

Why did Alberta's suicide rate jump by 30% recently? Why did suicide rates remain constant when the long gun registry came into effect and again remain constant with its abolition?

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Ok, what number of that 406,000 should we discount due to justifiable homicides and suicide? We should make sure we whittle it down to a more accurate number.

Go look at FBIs figures on their homepage.

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

Oh right those "good guys with guns". They always help out.

Or like, you know, cops and stuff.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

Go look at FBIs figures on their homepage.

Nah man, you make the claim you provide the support. That's how this works.

[2Stonedbirds]

Offhand I believe in 2013 the overall firearm death was around 30,000, the number of homicides was inbetween 13,000-18,000. Offhand. I'll find those numbers when I have access to something better than a phone.

[Coach]

All of the numbers are way to high. It really doesn't matter how you break it down.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

Not even close to the truth. Suicide numbers remain constant no matter what type of controls are in place, the method however changes.

When I'm at home at my computer I'll show some stats that proved this in Canada. Long gun registry, it's enforcement and abolishment proved to have no effect on overall suicide rates, people just used rope/co2 or whatever they could use to get the job done.

Long gun registry is a red herring. People generally don't commit suicide with weapons they can't point at themselves.

This point has been demonstrated over and over and over and over. Suicide is largely done on impulse, not carried out with careful planning. Method substitution is rare.

He's a pretty good set of figures from Harvard that look to disprove your claim

About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death. (Drug overdose, the most widely used method in suicide attempts, is fatal in less than 3 percent of cases.) Moreover, guns are an irreversible solution to what is often a passing crisis. Suicidal individuals who take pills or inhale car exhaust or use razors have time to reconsider their actions or summon help. With a firearm, once the trigger is pulled, there’s no turning back.

Asked how much time had passed between when they decided to take their lives and when they actually made the attempt, a startling 24 percent said less than 5 minutes; 48 percent said less than 20 minutes; 70 percent said less than one hour; and 86 percent said less than eight hours.

So no, they will not find something else instead, and if they did, they will likely not die.

"9 out of 10 people who attempt suicide and survive do not go on to die by suicide later. As Miller puts it, “If you save a life in the short run, you likely save a life in the long run.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine...e-hidden-toll/

Seems pretty compelling, no?



Here's some more studies:

IDF soldiers no longer allowed to bring guns home and suicide rates drop 40%

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21034205

Local-level background checks were found to be associated with a 27 percent-lower firearm suicide rate and a 22 percent-lower homicide rate in adults aged 21 years or older.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0603155227.htm

Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership rates, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and suicide across 50 states over a ten year period (1988-1997). After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, across the United States, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of suicide, particularly firearm suicide.

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and suicide across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. Epidemiology. 2002; 13:517-524.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/fi...rship-and-use/

There's an awful lot more if you'd like

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

Not even close to the truth. Suicide numbers remain constant no matter what type of controls are in place, the method however changes.

When I'm at home at my computer I'll show some stats that proved this in Canada. Long gun registry, it's enforcement and abolishment proved to have no effect on overall suicide rates, people just used rope/co2 or whatever they could use to get the job done.

A registry doesn't take guns away, it therefore isn't going to make any difference to suicide rates.

[octothorp]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...ot-uninformed/

Good article on the distinction between uninformed vs. misinformed voters.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

The Supreme Court interprets "due process" to all basic rights. That's been established repeatedly. The right to bear arms has also been established. Unless you plan on getting the Supreme Court to change it's interpretations you'll have to work with due process on how you find yourself on a "No gun list"

Sorry, you still don't understand due process, and most importantly, substantive due process or the courts review process in either. As I stated, there is not infringement on a fundamental right, and a judicial rational or intermediate basis review supports this. This allows the government to use restrictions by means of legislation to achieve a specific goal as reasonable and need not be tested. The rational or intermediate basis test then places burden of proof on a challenger. When the government is attempting to further interest such as public safety, of which gun control and flight access restrictions fall, are protected from challenge by intermediate scrutiny. This challenge was upheld in District of Columbia v. Heller, and confirmed that the right to bear arms is an individual right, but applied a caveat that the 2nd amendment does not define a right to keep or carry a weapon in any manner whatsoever. Restriction lists pertaining to public safety routinely pass the intermediate scrutiny muster making them law of the land and difficult to challenge on constitutional basis.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by New Era

Sorry, you still don't understand due process, and most importantly, substantive due process or the courts review process in either. As I stated, there is not infringement on a fundamental right, and a judicial rational or intermediate basis review supports this. This allows the government to use restrictions by means of legislation to achieve a specific goal as reasonable and need not be tested. The rational or intermediate basis test then places burden of proof on a challenger. When the government is attempting to further interest such as public safety, of which gun control and flight access restrictions fall, are protected from challenge by intermediate scrutiny. This challenge was upheld in District of Columbia v. Heller, and confirmed that the right to bear arms is an individual right, but applied a caveat that the 2nd amendment does not define a right to keep or carry a weapon in any manner whatsoever. Restriction lists pertaining to public safety routinely pass the intermediate scrutiny muster making them law of the land and difficult to challenge on constitutional basis.

This may be hard to parse, but it's correct as far as I know (not being a US lawyer).

To clarify: when you're reviewing a law for its constitutionality, there are a few levels of scrutiny that a Court can apply. They can either review the law on a "strict" scrutiny basis, which is a more stringent requirement that is more likely to see it struck down. They can review it on a "rational basis", which is the least likely to see the law struck down. Or, they can apply what New Era is talking about, a level somewhere in the middle: this is called "intermediate scrutiny".

This "middle" level of scrutiny is frequently applied to laws that restrict access to gun rights - which could be challenged as offending the 2nd amendment - in furtherance of public safety.

For a law that's being reviewed on an "intermediate scrutiny" basis to be upheld (that is, not to be struck down as unconstitutional), you need two things. First, the interest the law's protecting has to be of significant importance. Public safety qualifies. Second, the method used to curtail the right must be obviously related to the interest that's being protected. That one's a bit more nuanced.

The point is, it's possible to restrict people's gun ownership rights, without giving each individual a process, for certain public policy based reasons without running afoul of the 2nd amendment.

[afc wimbledon]

I should point out the 2nd amendment doesn't mention guns at all, it's all in the interpretation.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

The 406,000 dead due to gun violence number is misleading as it is also including suicides and justifiable homicide.

But leave it to CNN to BS viewers who they know can't be bothered to look into facts themselves, while they sensationalize the issue with Hollywood-esque promos using bang bang sound bites and dark art to paint a dystopian world while we have a countdown clock for Obamas big interview with Cooper.

Were there 406,000 killed with guns? Yes, Even with so called justifiable homicides are classed as gun violence, because guess what they're gun violence.

Were those suicides made easily by having a gun readily available? Yes

Is a person who wants to commit suicide suffering from mental illness? Yes

The Stat is accurate to me, between those dates that many people died due to a use of fire arms.

But fine.

From 2009 to 2014 according to the FBI Database.

Homicides by firearms

2009 - 9200
2010 - 8874
2011 - 8653
2012 - 8897
2013 - 8454

Total 44,078

Total homicides

2009 - 13752
2010 13174
2011 - 12795
2012 - 12888
2013 - 12253

So the vast majority, close to 3/4 of the homicides in the States were committed by acts of gun violence. That's without taking into accounts suicides, or officer committed killings, or accidental shootings.

So the vast majority of murders are committed by guns, not knives, or lawn mowers or cheese graters or illegal copies of pooty tang.

What's my point, simple the easiest way for the United States to cut down on homicides is to remove ability for people with mental health issues or violent tendencies from getting their hands of fire arms.

Look, I get the whole constitutional hawk thing. The second amendment protection of the right to bear arms. But the question that has to be asked is two fold.

Was the constitution designed to be a legal defense for murder and violence?

Is the constitution a suicide pact?

I'm sure that if you asked the founding fathers this that they would absolutely state that it is not.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I should point out the 2nd amendment doesn't mention guns at all, it's all in the interpretation.

I agree, and as absolutely absurd as it is, the Supreme Court has given their interpretation as the right to own guns

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

What do you think a right to "bear arms" means?

(insert obvious joke)

[trumpethead]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

Why did Alberta's suicide rate jump by 30% recently? Why did suicide rates remain constant when the long gun registry came into effect and again remain constant with its abolition?

Maybe because there is no correlation between registering your hunting rifle and choosing to kill yourself.