Las Vegas Shooting -- 59 Dead

[MikeH]

Also, people point at other countries like "guns are also allowed there and its safe", but are those actual countries where you are allowed to carry a hand gun on the street and where you are allowed to purchase machine guns?

You probably mean automatic weapons instead of machine guns but the answers are mostly no and no. By the way, also in USA the answer is maybe and no.

Most countries don't allow guns to be purchased for self defence and automatic weapons are also illegal. It is possible to be a special case (security for work/collector) but those are rare.

 

[Sudsy]

Question - any idea why it's so easy to get an illegal gun in the states? I'm guessing it's a lot harder in someplace like Japan.

Simple - more firearms are stolen in burglaries there. There's no requirement for storage, and a lot of people are incredibly careless with it - just google for news stories about children finding and shooting their parents' firearms. Growing up in Canada, even in a rural area where most people didn't lock their doors, most people still locked up their guns.

Getting an illegal firearm in Japan isn't that hard, though. Just very expensive. The bullets are expensive too, as they're controlled just as tightly as the firearms.

 

[Sudsy]

Also, people point at other countries like "guns are also allowed there and its safe", but are those actual countries where you are allowed to carry a hand gun on the street and where you are allowed to purchase machine guns?

I know of countries where people can own hunting guns and sports guns, but no countries where people flaunt their guns like in the US.

Most countries do not allow citizens to carry handguns, openly or concealed, period. That is correct.

If by machine guns you mean fully automatic weapons, then access to those is very tightly controlled in the few states that do allow them, and in most states they are illegal for members of the general public to possess.

FWIW, a legally owned fully automatic weapon has never been used in a crime in the United States as far as I know. A friend in Texas is a gun dealer and likes to throw these sort of things out in conversation... I'm trusting his accuracy on that one.

 

[MikeH]

The bullets are expensive too, as they're controlled just as tightly as the firearms.

And the punishment for holding them is one month in jail time. For each bullet.

As someone who used to buy a case of thousand every month this doesn't sound like a fair deal.

 

[Sudsy]

And the punishment for holding them is one month in jail time. For each bullet.

As someone who used to buy a case of thousand every month this doesn't sound like a fair deal.

Yeah, when I was growing up my dad used to send me (six years old) down to the store to buy ammo before we went out on hunting trips.

 

[hkAlone]

A bit of data that tends to demonstrate that the more guns owners you have the more homicide by guns you record.
It's ok to love guns. Just admit it's emotional not rational. Don't be a fool from guns lobby.

 

[just4fun]

I know I'm not meant to be on the evil side, but I actually want the chance to play with machine guns myself next time I'm in the US - Of course though, this is just a stupidly selfish reason!

Cambodia Airport.......shoot anything you want

 

[just4fun]

I remember hearing about that place, didn't they used to let you shoot at cows?

Cambodia near the Airport does that

 

[MikeH]

A bit of data that tends to demonstrate that the more guns owners you have the more homicide by guns you record.
It's ok to love guns. Just admit it's emotional not rational. Don't be a fool from guns lobby.

You are claiming it's homicide but the charts say only fatalities. Which one it is?

If it's fatalities then that's obvious as then people committing suicides would do them more with guns. If they didn't have guns they would jump under a train or find something else.

 

[Frenchy]

You are claiming it's homicide but the charts say only fatalities. Which one it is?

If it's fatalities then that's obvious as then people committing suicides would do them more with guns. If they didn't have guns they would jump under a train or find something else.

Do you think the correlation would be that different anyway, if it was only homicides?
Well you could say people can still use knives and cars and bombs to kill other people so that doesn't count ... but seems to me like a rather weak rationale

 

[MikeH]

Do you think the correlation would be that different anyway, if it was only homicides?

I do. There are countries with almost no homicides by shootings but many suicides. Those are also mostly by shotguns so not relevant if we want to prevent mass shootings.

I think the distinction is relevant if we are trying to find out how many deaths we could prevent by forbidding guns.

And by the way I am not trying to argue the US gun laws are good or that they should not be changed. That argument lost all its power when they gave Trump the nuclear launch codes.

 

[Frenchy]

I do. There are countries with almost no homicides by shootings but many suicides. Those are also mostly by shotguns so not relevant if we want to prevent mass shootings.

I think the distinction is relevant if we are trying to find out how many deaths we could prevent by forbidding guns.

And by the way I am not trying to argue the US gun laws are good or that they should not be changed. That argument lost all its power when they gave Trump the nuclear launch codes.

Oh, he probably forgot them already anyway (Otherwise they would be already on Twitter I guess)

 

[MikeH]

Oh, he probably forgot them already anyway (Otherwise they would be already on Twitter I guess)

Holy shit! I think we finally figured out what 'covfefe' is!

 

[Frenchy]

Holy shit! I think we finally figured out what 'covfefe' is!

Yeah, hopefully they changed it afterwards

 

[Hofmeyer]

I believe there have been some studies that show a majority of suicide attempts are spur of the moment things. Simply having someone call out to you when you're about to, say, jump off a bridge, can bring you back from the brink.

Accordingly, countries with fewer guns not only have less gun related suicides, but fewer overall, more than can be accounted for people simply having to choose a different method.

 

[Kaspar]

Interestingly, Canada has surprisingly high rates of firearms ownership - 70 registered firearms per 100 people, which I believe is the second highest ownership rate in the world.

The last mass shooting that wasn't part of a separate crime or dispute that I remember before the mosque killings in Quebec this year was the Ecole Polytechnique massacre in the 80s.

All the other mass shootings that I remember were gang executions, family squabbles gone wrong, or disputes with the police that went out of control. And by "mass" I mean more than two victims.

Our deadliest incident in the last 150 years or so was an arson attack.

The problem in the US isn't the access to firearms. It's a much deeper, much more serious problem with roots in lack of mental health care and social stability. A proper healthcare system would do more to curb violence in the US than rounding up detachable magazine firearms would.

That and keeping people with a history of mental problems from buying machine guns at Walmart...

 

[Frenchy]

That and keeping people with a history of mental problems from buying machine guns at Walmart...

Hey , could be worse : Toys R'Us... oh well they went bankrupt anyway

 

[MikeH]

Accordingly, countries with fewer guns not only have less gun related suicides, but fewer overall, more than can be accounted for people simply having to choose a different method.

For that claim I would like to have the source too as for example the two top countries in the world for suicides, Lithuania and South Korea, both have very few guns.

 

[MikeH]

Hey , could be worse : Toys R'Us... oh well they went bankrupt anyway

Well, maybe if they sold automatic weapons then they didn't have to go bankrupt!

 

[Hofmeyer]

It's not something I have at hand since I saw years ago, but the list of top suicide rate by country is definitely not Lithuania and South Korea. Most sources I can find with recent (within the last two years) show Sri-Lanka to be at the top with South Korea at tenth place. The implication of the studies would suggest that if readily available guns were added to the mix the rates would be even higher.

I did find this though it is a bit older than I would like: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/

 

[MikeH]

but the list of top suicide rate by country is definitely not Lithuania and South Korea.

The good thing about studies is everyone can select the one that supports their view.

http://www.businessinsider.com/world-suicide-rate-map-2014-4

 

[Hofmeyer]

The good thing about studies is everyone can select the one that supports their view.

http://www.businessinsider.com/world-suicide-rate-map-2014-4

True, mine came from the WHO's 2017 data while this one came from 2009.

 

[MikeH]

True, mine came from the WHO's 2017 data while this one came from 2009.

Sure, and how did the numbers in that list show the number of guns relates to the number of suicides again? Just to remind you this was the original claim: "Accordingly, countries with fewer guns not only have less gun related suicides, but fewer overall, more than can be accounted for people simply having to choose a different method."

I just checked the first 10 countries in the top of the gun list and their positions in the suicide list are 48, 59, 98, 159, 159, 26, 156, 17, 38, 102. To me that does not immediately show the relationship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

 

[Hofmeyer]

You should read the accompanying study I also linked to, and not just only one thing I said. If you only focus on a single source of information instead of everything I provided, there will of course be zero correlation.

A country with an already high suicide rate with low number of gun ownership is of course a high suicide rate country that's not the discussion. I'm saying that in countries with a high gun ownership rate the number of suicides is higher than it would otherwise be as supported by the study I provded. You're not seeing the forest because you're focusing on trees here.

 

[MikeH]

I'm saying that in countries with a high gun ownership rate the number of suicides is higher than it would otherwise be as supported by the study I provded.

Nope, it did not say that. The study was talking about US only, which I would guess we all agree to be a very special case in anything relating to guns in the first place.

As I said the nice thing about studies is you can select the ones supporting your argument; that goes both ways. I don't think your arguments in this matter are convincing and it seems very likely you think the same about my arguments.

So let's agree to disagree and move on to discuss about sex. At least with that we can all agree the more we have the better it is.

Edit: if this is not the proof then I don't know what is.