With the elections fast approaching, many issues are coming forward, as is typical. Most of the talk is about the economy and the war in Iraq. The far conservative right is still as passionate as ever about overturning Roe vs. Wade while the far liberal left wants to make sure that you can marry anybody you choose.The 2nd amendment is a topic that hasn't received a lot of attention recently, since the other issues always seem to be more pressing... you only see people worry about gun violence when someone they know is personally affected or everything else in the country is going well.
To set the record straight, I've always been pro- gun rights. My logic has been pretty simple, even though I don't own a firearm:
If you outlaw owning a gun, the only people who will own guns are criminals, the exact same people who you don't want to own guns. The only people who will now not have guns are law abiding citizens.
I am also troubled about a created society where only the government is allowed to have guns. This seems... problematic if taken to extremes.
However, Burt Constable an article in the Daily Herald that made me pause and think about gun rights in our country. Even in junior high I would read the comics, plus Burt's article. He always has something short and to the point, and he made me think. I consider him to be a little left leaning, but you can't fault someone for having one leg a little shorter than the other.
One of the more powerful questions he asked was, "What causes more fatalities in our country, alcohol related car crashes, or suicide by gunshot?" I venture to guess that most people would say drunk driving. But when the question comes to "by how much?" I would be tempted to say maybe 2 or the 3 people die each year due to drunk driving for every person killed by suicide with a gun.
Turns out I would not only be wrong about the order of magnitude, but by which side I picked as well. As it turns out, the numbers are very close, leaning more towards gun related suicides. As Burt states, roughly 31,000 people are killed by guns each year.
Suicides are responsible for 55.4 percent of gun deaths in the U.S., while homicides account for 40.2 percent, according to the most-recent (2005) statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicides by gun have outnumbered gun homicides and gun accidents in 20 of the last 25 years.I didn't believe the last sentence. I fact checked, and to my surprise Burt is right.
For those of you rightfully concerned about drunken driving, more people take their own lives with guns than die in alcohol-related crashes.
Here's something even more startling (sorry for the math) 100-55.4-40.2 = 95.4 percent of gun deaths are either murder or suicide. Giving the benefit of the doubt that the remaining number are shootings related to self defense or law enforcement, it implies that 22 out of every 23 shootings is for "something bad". I can't fully reason in my mind that the 1 of 23 is actually "something good" as someone is still dying.
Congratulations, Burt. I dislike guns more than I did before. But what in the world do we do about it? My logic and concerns still apply.
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5 comments:
I am with you Matt. I think if Gunns ceased to exist the suicide rate would go down. I am assuming some suicides are (maybe most???) are spontaneous decisions. But I wonder if we took away all guns wouldn't most people committing suicide find another way.
Guns don't cause the suicide. It is something much deeper than that. Guns don't cause crime. If we took away guns wouldn't criminals find another way to kill people?
Hmm. Very interesting points both Matt and Chris. I'd like to go off something Chris said - about guns not causing suicide....
True.
HOWEVER. There's also a statistic that says men more often succeed at committing suicide than women do - the main reason being men pick more violent means to committing suicide, such as shooting oneself. A bullet to the head is a pretty sure thing, whereas a bottle of pills, jumping in front of a car, etc., run the risks of survival (and survival with permanent injury - which is probably a risk many severely depressed people don't want to take).
So in terms of the idea that if we took away guns, people committing suicide would find another way, I don't believe that to be 100% true. I think their effectiveness in causing immediate death I think does contribute to the high rates (going on the point mentioned earlier - a bank robber is probably more hesistant about entering with a knife because he runs the risk of a higher chance of not being able to kill the witnesses immediately and then the witnesses surviving, alerting authorities and later identifying him).
For me personally - I am not sure where I stand on the 2nd amendment. I am surely no gun enthusiast and don't own one myself. I kind of see it as a flawed system - someone like me, a relatively young female who could possibly need/use a gun solely for self-defense doesn't, however, all the troublemakers do. However, that being said, I do see a major potential problem to only the government having firearms. Also, I do agree that there would be underground gun market for the criminals if they were outlawed. So I stand undecided.
Also from Burt's article:
Most people who attempt suicide don't kill themselves on the first try. And the vast majority who survive a suicide attempt don't end up killing themselves later - unless they use a gun, which, as it is designed to do, generally ends that life on the first attempt.
In one study of 30 people who beat the odds to survive self-inflicted gunshots, none wrote suicide notes, and half said they had been thinking about suicide for less than 24 hours. A 2001 University of Houston study of suicide survivors found that 24 percent said the interval between deciding to kill themselves and attempting to do so was less than five minutes.
and, I have to say....
the Daily Herald?!?!
Yuck.
(j/k)
I do not like guns because they are used for killing people.
But the problem is really with people.
Guns don't cause suicide, they assist the person commiting suicide.
Just like the old phase, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
People were killing people long before guns were invented--Cain and Abel?
The problem lies within humanity. Taking away guns/gun rights will not solve the problem of evil.
We need to reach out and love people. We need to seek out those who are depressed, lonely, or miserable. We need to walk alongside them in their pain to help prevent suicide.
We also need to reach out and love people that are violent and angry. We need to care for them and raise children to love and not to hate.
Evil will exist in the world until Jesus comes back. And he did show us that love is the greatest of all. It conquers all.
The government can do all it can to keep guns out of the hands of those who will use them for evil. But that will never completely solve the problem. And that's why this is such a tough issue.
And, as I can see that we are all wrestling with these questions...I'm sure y'all knew everything I said already.
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