Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?

Don't know if it's the "worst" of human behavior, but stricter laws and increased awareness about drunk driving have been very successful.

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Because the laws are focused on greater penalties for the PERPETRATOR illegally using the implement, not the bannning of the implement (car). In addition these laws are actually ENFORCED.

By enacting laws on LEGAL firearms, the result is only the loss of freedom by the law abiding.

See the difference?

Drunk driving is an ACTION that puts others in danger. Simply having a car or a bottle of whiskey endangers no one.

It doesn't help at all from any point of view.

Pilot said:

Because the laws are focused on greater penalties for the PERPETRATOR illegally using the implement, not the bannning of the implement (car). In addition these laws are actually ENFORCED.

By enacting laws on LEGAL firearms, the result is only the loss of freedom by the law abiding.

See the difference?

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Yeah I definitely do, although you illustrated it nicely. And the quote I was responding to asked about legislating behavior, not the banning of implements.

However, we should all be careful I guess in how we approach this issue, because the idea of legislating behavior (which I admittedly just supported) could be used to analogize how limiting where/how one can carry a weapon would be effective legislation. Not that I agree with such legislation...just pointing that out.

Was I the only person who noticed that the last name of one of the authors was "Mauser"?

The weapon would change, look at Britain, I have read that crimes involving knives have skyrocketed. China is having the same problem.

And the quote I was responding to asked about legislating behavior, not the banning of implements.

However, we should all be careful I guess in how we approach this issue, because the idea of legislating behavior (which I admittedly just supported) could be used to analogize how limiting where/how one can carry a weapon would be effective legislation. Not that I agree with such legislation...just pointing that out.

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I understand. The flawed logic comes from trying to legislate behavior, not by focusing on the person displaying the illegal behavior, but the inanimate object used by the person.

People that have their driver's license revoked or suspended still drive cars illegally. People that have criminal records or a record of mental illness can still carry guns illegally, as like the illegal driver, they do not follow the law. However, due to the potential risks and penalties involved, you and I WOULD follow the law because we are among the law abiding, and we are not the people society should be concerned about.

The politicians crying for "tougher gun laws" know that more laws won't help. It is "political theater" played out for votes, and emotional currency. Liberal politicians want gun bans, not tougher criminal penalties as sometimes their constituents sympathize with the criminal as seen as a victim of society, etc. But, I digess.

I have read of studies (don't ask me for citation, just search for it) that show that suicide is usually performed by whatever means is most at hand. Meaning that if guns were not available persons intent on committing suicide would choose other means...such as hanging, jumping off tall buildings, carbon monoxide poisoning, stepping in front of trains, etc etc.

Similarly, countries with strict gun control laws have murders committed by other means...hands & feet, blunt force, etc. I was stunned years ago while on extended visit to England when reading the daily papers about local murders all committed by stabbing.

Bottom line...murders and suicide are caused by other complex factors than simply by means available. Guns no more cause suicide or murder than a length of rope or a claw hammer do.

My favorite correlation = causation graph -

http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/001857.php

The example they used in my statistics class was that the number of alcoholics and the number of school teachers were both directly proportional to the population of a city. So, that proved that school teachers were alcoholics...

The problem is, while most will dismiss these examples as obviously stupid, they don't seem to be able to see the exact same (fallacious) arguments used in the news, every day.

""Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?""

Unpopular as it may be, I'm saying that it probably would decrease the numbers in much the same way that the outlawing of ALL prescription meds would almost certainly decrease the suicide numbers. I feel certain that there are people who would not have killed themselves if their own personal choice of tool had not been present.

In example: there's gotta be at least one person (moldering corpse) out there who chose the perceived painless and un-messy route of sleeping pill overdose as the only acceptable route to the great beyond and would never have; hung, gassed, or drowned themselves let alone shot themselves.

Likewise, I know of one person who deliberately shot himself in his family's kitchen to make a point with the shotgun. The selfish prick got outa that shotgun and venue something very immediate (for him) and long lasting (for his family) just like he wanted. This guy would not likely have killed himself in any other way (knowing him all my life).

So yeah, I say some folk murdered (by themselves or others) would still be alive if firearms had never been invented but the same can be said about cars, toasters, airliners and dogs.

What's a fella to do? Recognize that life is messy and other people's "own good" is most often none of your business.

There is a debate in the suicide prevention literature about whether means removal actually reduces suicide rate. Most have focused on diagnosis and prevention.

It was thought that if you removed a method, there would be quick substitution of other methods but it's argued this isn't the case in current literature. Some means are attractive nuisances. So blocking jumping sites seems to have reduced suicides as you don't see an increase in other means near those sites.

However, would a blanket ban on guns work to prevent suicide. Previous literature says no. Since it won't happen, there can't be an empirical test in the USA.

But, I do caution that if you have someone showing suicidal ideation, it is a very good ideas to get the means out of there - including guns and Rx, etc.

A blanket ban is different from dealing with an individual.

There is a debate in the suicide prevention literature about whether means removal actually reduces suicide rate.

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Agreed.

I'll go further and claim that, while no one knows the answer for sure, it is likely that reducing gun ownership would reduce suicide rate (especially in men, who have a high tendency toward suicide with guns). Some of the reduced suicide-by-gun numbers would be of course be replaced by suicide by other means...but I'm not at all sure the substitution would be 100%.

We would have to weigh any reduced suicide numbers against (I believe) increased murder, assault, and rape numbers.

And, quite frankly, we would have to also consider whether any of that matters: whether we'd be willing to give up the RKBA in any case, no matter what the data suggest.

Other thoughts on suicide and guns here and here.

dentist have the highest suicide rate?

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It's a depressing job; they're always looking down in the mouth.

Japan has a lower murder rate than the US, and a smaller percentage of their of their smaller number of murders are by shooting. Their suicide rate is higher, to the point that the intentional death rate homicides + suicides per 100,000 pop. per year is actually higher in Japan than in the US. Japanese suicides are also more likely to be by methods that endanger others, including ingesting chemicals that generate gases that can be fatal to emergency medical personnel. People in different countries have different lives--and deaths--for different reasons.

Criminologist Marvin Wolfgang (who personally loathed guns) studied 588 Philadelphia homicides in detail: relationship of murderer and victim, circumstances of the crime, and concluded :

... More than the availability of a shooting weapon is involved in homicide. .... The type of weapon used appears to be, in part, the culmination of assault intentions or events and is only superficially related to causality. To measure quantitatively the effect of the presence of firearms on the homicide rate would require knowing the number and type of homicides that would not have occurred had not the offender_ or, in some cases, the victim_ possessed a gun. Research would require determination of the number of shootings that would have been stabbings, beatings, or some other method of inflicting death had no gun been available. It is the contention of this observer that few homicides due to shootings could be avoided merely if a firearm were not immediately present, and that the offender would select some other weapon to achieve the same destructive goal. ...

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He also noted that firearms used in murder were often bought off the streets.

Stricter storage laws will however reduce accidental deaths in which children are involved.

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Not likely. Gun owners with small children actually engaging in smarter storage would do the trick, but passing a law that is pretty much impossible to enforce will not get it done.

Kind of like saying banning silverware would cause fat people to loose weight and get healthy.:banghead:

BTW you can't legislate stupidity out of the situation.

Or putting fences up around the nations 215,000 miles of rail would stop people from jumping in front of trains. Oddly enough, more women choose that way of suicide then men.

No amount of gun control will ever stop suicides.If a gun is not available,then a person may hang themselves,gas themselves,with carbon-monoxide(Attatching a hose pipe from the exaust pipe,into the car,jump off a bridge,etc.

Also no amount of stricter storage regulations will stop children from taking their parents firearms.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7436232/Tragedy-as-teenager-kills-himself-with-parents-shotgun.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4098131/Boy-13-shoots-himself-dead-in-row-br-with-colonel-dad.html

EnfieldEnthusiast said:

Also no amount of stricter storage regulations will stop children from taking their parents firearms.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7436232/Tragedy-as-teenager-kills-himself-with-parents-shotgun.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4098131/Boy-13-shoots-himself-dead-in-row-br-with-colonel-dad.html

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Nothing in those stories indicates that the secure storage of the firearms was bypassed in order to obtain access to the suicide instrument.

Unless the argument is that mandating secure storage doesn't mean that guns will necessarily be stored securely. The same quandary exists for seatbelts.

Sounds like stuff for the UN Small Arms Treaty.... Hillary and Obama support this.

One world government stuff.....

The US would loose its sovernity. No No No

Added: If firearms were completely eliminated from private ownership, people would still kill each other and find a way to kill themselves. If you are going to kill youself, do it in the confines of your home where others will not be affected directly versus driving into a tree at 100 MPH. Maybe we could just make auto ownership and operation more difficult and expensive.... Oh, that is what our President wants anyway... and he claims to be for the common man.

Banning guns won't eliminate or even reduce suicides. Someone truly serious about taking their own life will find some other way. Without trying to be ghoulish, there are anecdotes that such people, in countries that lack guns, often choose methods that are much more painful and brutal than gunshot.

Once you understand where Harvard is, the rest falls into place. People, at least most of us, don't want to be like Europe. That is why my family came here in the 1700s....chris3

I work in a prison. There are no firearms other than those of the officers outside of the secure areas of the compound. No knives or any weapons are allowed. Those that are present are manufacured or obtained through illegitimate means.

Does the lack of weapons affect the murder, suicide or even incidents of violence? No.

What criminals do on the inside, they do on the outside.

The ongoing Canadian experiment with placebo firearm legislation initiated in 1995 showed that making lawful access to firearms more difficult didn't change the suicide rate, it just resulted in method substitution.

There are also statistics that show guns are used about two million times per year with people defending themselves from a crime. Sometimes, this is nothing more than pulling a gun out to show the perpetrator that a defense against them is available and that stops the crime with no shots being fired. So, you would also have to factor in the outcome of these events without a gun being available, and there you have 2M more chances for a violent crime being successful.