Does owning a gun/CCW extend your life on average?

[Habeed]

I'm a student in Texas in a small western city.

At lecture in medical school today, one of our attendings talked about how if you sense the patient is depressed, you should ask if they keep any guns in the house (or carry them). Evidently, the single biggest risk factor for a person successfully committing suicide is if they have access to a firearm.

You also are supposed to ask the gun question if they have children.

If the patient has children, you're supposed to ask if they keep the guns locked up separately from the ammunition in the house. If the patient is depressed, you're supposed to advise them to lock the gun in a safe deposit box.

Why is this relevant? Well, accordingly to the CDC, in 2006 there were 33,300 deaths from suicide and 18,573 deaths from murder in the United States.

I've also read about a study where all of the shootings happening in private homes were tallied up, and the number of homicides/suicides versus self defense shootings were compared. As I recall, the evidence was every time firearms were used, it was a suicide or a homicide.

What's my point? I have a strong hunch, that could probably be eventually supported with irrefutable statistical data, that ON AVERAGE owning a gun decreases your ultimate life expectancy very slightly. That for the average person, it does NOT help you make it to the end of the line to die in your own drool in a nursing home or hospice.

Now, don't get me wrong, here. There are plenty of folks who live in crime ridden areas or out in the country who clearly have a legitimate need for a firearm. I've very much enjoyed the chances I got to shoot at the range while I was in the military, and using friend's weapons in civilian life. I think EOTech sights are pretty cool, and that a magazine for a rifle should hold at least 30 rounds in it like the manufacturer intended. I don't think that fat government bureaucrats should be able to deny me the right to own a gun if I find I need one.

But this whole thing reminds me about the comparison between travel by car or by airplane. The statistics say that if you stand in line and get searched and treated like a suspected terrorist and file aboard the airplane like a good little sheep, you have a better chance of making it to your destination alive an uninjured than if you drive. Yet, paradoxically, it certainly feels more dangerous to cram yourself aboard a jet aircraft with strangers than it does to fire up your silverado crew-cab and drive the same distance. In one case, you've given up all control and are at the mercy of a penny pinching airline, in the other you're at the wheel of a 6000 lb American made machine.

In a similar manner, it might actually be safer to escape through a window and run for your life in fear if you hear someone breaking in. To just pull out your wallet the moment you think a mugger is closing in. To bend over and take it if someone tries to rape you in a dark alley. All of these things might boost the odds that you'll live to your 80s or 90s to die from metastatic tumors invading all your organs or to drown in a pool of your own secretions.

In short, I understand. Some day, I'd like to own a few rifles and shotguns myself. Firearms are incredibly cool toys, and a key cornerstone of defense for the house built stout as a castle that I'd like to own someday. But, I'm having trouble with this fundamental liberal idea : while gun bans might not be in the spirit of freedom, unrestricted civilian ownership of firearms appears to kill a lot more people than they protect. It's actually the same argument that is used to support socialized medicine : while waiting for months in lines in run down government run hospitals doesn't sound like something I want, giving medical care to everyone seems to save more lives than are lost.

I'd appreciate well thought out responses. Please, no anecdotal evidence : the plural of anecdote is not data.

 

[bdickens]

It can if you get attacked!

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

If you're attacked and need to use it, it would certainly extend your life. I can think of no inherent qualities or properties that would by themselves extend your life, though.

 

[everallm]

Habeed,

To start with hard data......

Go to the CDC site and start querying through the WISQARS application for drill down detail

http://cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html

This gives data up to and including 2006, the data from 07 and 08 is available separately

Suicide is 11th in ranking for all ages with 50.7% by firearm, if you strip out the other 49.3% then suicide by firearm by all ages/races/sexes would drop to below 17th place as cause of death.

The absolute number is far below accidental deaths by Motor Vehicle, Poisoning and Falling

Homicide comes in as 15th in ranking and if you strip the absolute numbers out for homicide by firearm would drop off the top 20.

Insurance actuarial tables are used to estimate causes and costs of death and do NOT include weighting for additional costs for home and life insurance for firearms owners. They might not carry firearms on your household contents insurance but that has no relevance to deaths or injuries bu owner.

In addition there is no insurance carrier that requires separation of firearms and ammunition, etc if you carry firearms replacement insurance as part of your household cover.

I'm afraid your comment about a study saying all firearms incidents in the home are suicides or homicides is utter bollocks, no such peer reviewed legitimate study exists or would exist. How could it as it would mean that every time a firearm is discharged in a home it would be a criminal act.

I could continue but leave the rest as an exercise for the reader

 

[Sav .250]

Owning a gun guarantees you nothing........

 

[lions]

Since you are talking about depressed people owning guns wouldn't it be more appropriate to say depression shortens that average life span?

To bend over and take it if someone tries to rape you in a dark alley.

So I take it you don't have a daughter or a wife. I'll venture a guess and say you don't have a sister (at least not one that you seem to care about). I'll give you a little credit and guess that you assume it couldn't happen to your mother.

Basically what you are saying is that women shouldn't carry guns to defend themselves because one day down the road they may become depressed and shorten the average life span. This might come as a surprise, but I respectfully disagree.

 

[Habeed]

What I meant by that was that getting raped is a horrible, horrible thing, but it might turn out that your chances overall of living to 80+ were higher if you didn't carry a firearm that would have allowed you to prevent the rape.

The reason is more subtle : actually, I suspect that your chances of surviving a rape or robbery or any attack ARE higher if you're armed. It's just that there are a number of dangers inherent in possessing a gun (suicides, accidental discharges, shooting someone in the dark that turns out not to be a robber, shooting the man who your wife is cheating on with, etc) that the OVERALL risk of keeping that 0.45 in your pants or your purse may be higher. Not everyone is attacked in their life, but if you carry a gun around or keep it under the pillow, that's a constant additional source of problems.

And my other point, which evidently wasn't clear enough, is that it might actually be better to stand tall and protect the innocent from attacks and so forth. Even if your life expectancy were reduced, the end of life for those of us who do everything right is not a pretty business. We do all die eventually, and if you carried a gun you might avoid scenarios where you felt as fearful or helpless. I myself had a situation where I wished I had a gun or at least a taser. While no one ended up being hurt, and no property was lost, I felt helpless in the face of the criminal.

 

[bob.a]

"unrestricted civilian ownership of firearms appears to kill a lot more people than they protect"

Aside from some grammar issues, the statement is false. You do not have to shoot and kill someone in order to gain protection from possessing a firearm. The mere production of the gun with the intent to use it will short-circuit many threats.

There are thousands more deaths from automobile accidents than firearms, yet I've not seen anyone trying to ban them. Does driving a car have an adverse effect on lifespan? I would venture to guess that suicide by motor vehicle is not unknown, though hard to quantify.

Regarding aircraft vs auto travel, it's not a matter of control of your destiny so much as a matter of the abilities of those who share the road/sky with you.

The CDC looking at violent death through the prism of disease is purely a political stance, with little to recommend it in terms of finding a solution to the underlying problems. Just another case of looking at all problems as nails, when your only tool is a hammer. (And that hammer was bought and paid for by the folks who dole out the funds to keep your agency running).

For a first-time poster, Habeed, you seem to have a faint whiff of the troll about you. Say it isn't so.

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

The biggest problem with government regulation is they paint everyone with the same brush which focuses on the lowest common denominator.

There are people who would do something stupid or dangerous if they owned a gun (or knife, or rope, or car, etc). There are people who will kill themselves by some means or another. Don't restrict me because of someone else's stupidity or mental issues. Trying to save everyone from themselves is an exercise in futility.

The self defense uses you describe (setting aside all the other uses such as competition, recreation, comraderie, etc.) are about the foundations of freedom. Being willing and able to defend yourself and your family from those who would do them harm, rather than relying on someone you've never even met before who may be on the other side of town while you (or your wife, daughter, mother...) are lying in extreme pain, choking on their own fluids as you suggest, just because someone wanted to see what it felt like to kill/rape/beat someone and their victim obeyed the law by not carrying a useful self defense tool.

...unrestricted civilian ownership of firearms appears to kill a lot more people than they protect.

The estimates of how many times a handgun has saved someone's bacon (not actual shots fired, or deaths, since that's such a tiny sliver of the actual number of times the crimimal's instinct for self-preservation kicked in) are in the hundreds of thousands annually. An estimate will have to do since we don't (yet) have cameras everywhere watching our every move to record each such incident.

 

[Jim K]

I doubt that there is any statistical difference. The argument that a gun in the house is more likely to be used against someone in the house than against a criminal intruder is true, but not valid. The number of home invasions is small and the general ownership of guns is a general deterrent more than a specific defense.

The other problem is that domestic violence is not weapon dependent. If a gun is available, it might be used, but if a gun is not available the crime will not be prevented. In this general region there have been three recent cases of a father killing his wife and children. In two cases, a gun was used. In the other case, the father had been known to express anti-gun views and had been quoted as saying that no one should be allowed to have a gun. He used a knife. The dead, as far as I know, had no opinions.

Jim

 

[ArmedBear]

(not actual shots fired, or deaths, since that's such a tiny silver of the actual number of times the crimimal's instinct for self-preservation kicked in)

That's the key. I believe the FBI estimates that firearms stop a crime over 500,000 times per year. I'll let you go find it yourself; you didn't cite anything either.

The Brady Campaign counts deaths vs. deaths, whereas the presence of a firearm, in the hands of police or civilians, STOPS a violent crime far more often than it causes a death.

Finally, people are individuals. Communities are nothing but a collection of individuals. If you don't treat people individually as a medical practitioner, they'll die. The average person isn't sick. The cancer patient in your office is. Treat the cancer patient as if he were part of a community that is, by and large, not sick, and he will die very quickly and painfully.

The whole communitarian worldview that says that it's fine for a woman to be raped and stabbed to death, with no means of protecting herself, because on average she wouldn't have been raped and stabbed, does not work to reduce violent crime (see England's statistics). It is also morally repugnant. It fails by both utilitarian and moral standards.

 

[lions]

...dangers inherent in possessing a gun (suicides, accidental discharges, shooting someone in the dark that turns out not to be a robber, shooting the man who your wife is cheating on with, etc)

Those aren't dangers inherent in possessing a gun, those are dangers inherent in a person doing something they shouldn't do. A gun doesn't make you suicidal, it doesn't make you negligent while handling it, it doesn't make you fail to identify your target, and it doesn't throw you into a homicidal rage, etc. I don't see how this comes down to the guns. Guns don't shorten the average lifespan, suicidal and homicidal people shorten the average lifespan.

 

[ArmedBear]

BTW has it occurred to anyone that it's an arbitrary standard that says that suicide is bad?

I don't much care for suicide, but who's to say? Doctors? Why? Does someone not own his own life, both to defend if he/she chooses, or to take, if he/she chooses?

If not, who does own your life?

That said, I know people who have had issues with depression, and who have enjoyed shooting, but choose not to have any guns around because they DON'T want to do anything to hurt themselves. I respect that choice. I would also take possession of someone's guns for safekeeping, if they told me they wanted me to keep them away from guns for a while. That's far different from advocating that an authoritarian government takes them.

There are many other assumptions you have yet to question, beyond anything to do with guns, before you can get to a real answer.

 

[JellyJar]

There are several countries such as Japan where firearms are not very available. However, many of these countries have suicide rates many times higher than the U.S. That means the mere lack of firearms do not prevent suicides so the mere presence of firearms do not, in and of themselves, promote suicide.

Here is one of many sources:

http://www.slate.com/id/2167295/

"If the patient has children, you're supposed to ask if they keep the guns locked up separately from the ammunition in the house. If the patient is depressed, you're supposed to advise them to lock the gun in a safe deposit box."

You should ask about other risk factors like swimming pools, cars, knives, poison, ect Far more children ( persons the age of 10 or under ) die each year from causes other than firearms accidents or suicides.

"I've also read about a study where all of the shootings happening in private homes were tallied up, and the number of homicides/suicides versus self defense shootings were compared. As I recall, the evidence was every time firearms were used, it was a suicide or a homicide."

The most egregious fallacy of gun control is the mistaken belief that in order for a firearm to be "used" in self defense that it is necessary to actually shoot and kill a criminal. Studies ( google Kleck and guns ) have shown that in the vast majority of encounters between criminals and armed citizens no shots are fired and no one is killed. That means you cannot measure how useful firearms are for self defense simply by doing a body count.

One more thing...Imagine that you are a would be burglar. You live in a place like Alabama where many people keep guns in their homes for self defense. Would you be willing to break into an occupied home knowing that there was a good chance of being shot and killed? I wouldn't. The most difficult thing to measure in the gun control debate is how often criminals decide not to try and commit a crime because they either know or fear that a potential victim may be armed, yet this is one of the most important reasons that firearms are potent deterrents to crime.

 

[lions]

The estimates of how many times a handgun has saved someone's bacon (not actual shots fired, or deaths, since that's such a tiny silver of the actual number of times the crimimal's instinct for self-preservation kicked in) are in the hundreds of thousands annually.

Dr. Gary Kleck, a criminologist from Florida State University has done a study which estimates that number is more like 2.5 million times per year. It also finds that guns are used 3 to 4 times more often in a defensive role than in a criminal role.
http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck2.html

 

[inherentical]

Owning guns extends my life significantly because I am not depressed about not being able to own guns.

 

[Habeed]

ArmedBear : the point of view of physicians is that there are happy pills (prozac, ativan, stronger stuff) that can make most suicidal people feel better. Even the ones who are justifiably depressed or are considering suicide for a rational reason.

If a suicidal person owns a gun, they can kill themselves on a spur of the moment decision in a few seconds. The most depressed person can probably thumb off a safety and pull back a trigger. It's too easy.

Other methods of suicide are much slower and less effective.

The same argument applies to homicides. Fact is, in Switzerland where there is a similar monoculture to other european countries, there is a significantly higher murder and suicide rate due to the guns and ammunition in nearly every household.

A gun doesn't CAUSE murder or suicides...people do. But a gun IS a catalyst. It greatly lowers the amount of effort needed to commit a murder or a suicide, causing crimes that wouldn't quite have actually happened to happen.

(remember catalysts from chemistry class? They lower the activation energy of a chemical reaction, speeding up the process)

 

[ArmedBear]

A gun doesn't CAUSE murder or suicides...people do. But a gun IS a catalyst. It greatly lowers the amount of effort needed to commit a murder or a suicide, causing crimes that wouldn't quite have actually happened to happen.

It also greatly lowers the amount of effort needed to prevent a home invader from killing an innocent family, causing murders that would have most certainly happened, not to happen. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, unless you choose to look at only one side of things, which is mere propaganda.

ArmedBear : the point of view of physicians is that there are happy pills (prozac, ativan, stronger stuff) that can make most suicidal people feel better. Even the ones who are justifiably depressed or are considering suicide for a rational reason.

Sure. You think I don't know that? (insert gratuitous Brave New World reference here...)

That's avoiding the question I asked, which was one about much deeper values.

Do physicians own your life? That was my question.

What are your assumptions? I mean fundamental assumptions. Your post is full of them -- everyone has them.

 

[Sam1911]

there is a significantly higher murder and suicide rate due to the guns and ammunition in nearly every household.

First, please provide a cite for that statistic.

Then, for the gold star, prove causality. So far (if that first statement is, indeed, true) all you've shown is a circumstantial coincidence.

What is it about having all those guns and ammo that makes these Swiss so inclined to murder and suicide?

-Sam

 

[Norinco982lover]

If a suicidal person owns a gun, they can kill themselves on a spur of the moment decision in a few seconds. The most depressed person can probably thumb off a safety and pull back a trigger. It's too easy.

Other methods of suicide are much slower and less effective.

It seems to me it would be much easier to jump off a cliff...drink anti-freeze...slit my wrists...or drive into a bad part of town and start yelling racial comments.

Sticking the barrel of a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger doesn't guarantee your death.

Some people have bad reactions to anti-depressants...in some cases it makes them suicidal...right? Couldn't you say that people who take anti-depressants or visit a psychiatrist on a regular basis have shorter life spans than those who don't?

~Norinco

 

[ArmedBear]

BTW there's no correlation, to say nothing of causation, Sam1911.

Here's a world map of suicide rates.

There's no suggestion here that the Swiss fall outside the trends for culture, sunshine, religiosity, economics or whatever else one has ever tried to correlate with suicide.

 

[NGIB]

Folks, feeding trolls is dangerous as it can create more trolls. Based on the OP responses, this is just another anti trying to appear "fair & balanced"...

 

[ArmedBear]

Couldn't you say that people who take anti-depressants or visit a psychiatrist on a regular basis have shorter life spans than those who don't?

But doctors with condos in Aspen have longer life spans due to stress relief, fresh air and exercise. And these patients help pay for the condos.

So, on the whole, "society" is better off -- that's the view of physicians, right?

 

[Habeed]

ArmedBear : as a practical matter, physicians have limited power and resources to stop a suicide. However, yes, in every case I've heard of, physicians have a duty to act to stop someone from committing suicide even if they want to or have a good reason. In that respect, they are acting from the assumption that while the person might want to kill themselves now, once they are pumped full of drugs they will retroactively consent to the measures used to preserve their life. (although one could rationally argue that a person on strong enough drugs is not the same person)

A real life case given in ethics class : there was a woman with a motor neuron disease that had nearly fully paralyzed her. However, she could still feel excruciating pain from her body, and was bed ridden. Since she could not pick up or use anything, she went to a hospital in California and asked the doctors there to relieve her suffering while she voluntarily starved herself to death.

What did the physicians there do? Did they respect her wish to die? Nope, they wrote her up for a psych consult and ultimately shipped her off to a psychiatric institution, where she was pumped full of drugs and given therapy and eventually decided she didn't feel like killing herself. The woman is still alive today, although her medical condition has gotten no better.

The answer to your question is : physicians don't own your life, but the rules they have to follow, set by law and professional organizations, govern their actions in such a way that sometimes physicians have to take actions that look like they own your life.

 

[ArmedBear]

The answer to your question is : physicians don't own your life, but the rules they have to follow, set by law and professional organizations, govern their actions in such a way that sometimes physicians have to take actions that look like they own your life.

That's also not news to me. It makes sense in some situations, too.

It also has nothing to do with the original question of values, which was, "Who owns YOUR life?"

Do you really not understand the difference between the conventions of medical practice and your core beliefs about whether you are an autonomous individual, or someone who must be forced to sacrifice yourself for the good of the community?

What do YOU believe? Who owns you?

It's a pretty important question, at least to me.