I got your National Emergency right here

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Bicycle Bill
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I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Bicycle Bill »

The front page of the Miami Herald, 2/17/2019:

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“The 12-month period starting Feb. 14, 2018, saw nearly 1,200 lives snuffed out.  That’s a Parkland every five days, enough victims to fill three ultra-wide Boeing 777s,” journalist Kevin Hall writes.  “The true number is certainly higher because no government agency keeps a real-time tally and funding for research is restricted by law.”

The Herald goes on to list the names of 1,157 kids and teens who have been killed since Parkland, separating the deaths into some of the following categories:  homicide, self-defense, accidental, drive-by, and murder-suicide.

THERE'S your National Emergency, Mr. Trump.
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Burning Petard
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Burning Petard »

Funding restricted by law? Only restriction is on funding from federal taxes. Why does everything have to be filtered though Washington DC? With current 'science' management style in this administration, why would anyone trust federal funded research on this topic any more than I trust research funded by Purdue Pharma on the effects of OxyContin?

That is a distraction. I fully agree with the main point of the post--this is a far bigger problem than MS-13 or women on the Southern border in cars with tape on hands and mouth.

snailgate

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dales
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by dales »

“The 12-month period starting Feb. 14, 2018, saw nearly 1,200 lives snuffed out.
How many of those were suicides?

Not wishing to mitigate the numbers, I believe that suicides are often lumped together under "gun deaths" to advance a political agenda.

Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


yrs,
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BoSoxGal
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by BoSoxGal »

I follow numerous gun control and gun violence advocacy groups and none of them attempt to hide that a large number of such deaths are suicides. I’m not sure why you think there’s some special distinction? Preventing senseless deaths, such as children killed by firearms and mass shootings AND the many suicides that wouldn’t happen but for easy access to firearms IS the political agenda.
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dales
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by dales »

Oh, calm down...….bsg. 8-)

Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


yrs,
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ex-khobar Andy
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I think it's a valid point. No doubt many firearms suicides would choose another method if a gun were not available; but equally I am sure that a number of firearms suicides would not occur if a gun were not handy.

I don't know if that's 50:50 or even 90:10 either way, but to me it is undoubtable that the ready access to firearms increases the number of suicides.

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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Econoline »

dales wrote:Oh, calm down...….bsg. 8-)
No, Dale, it's a legitimate question. Why do you (and others) need to make the distinction?

A suicide committed with a gun is usually just as senseless as a murder committed with a gun.




ETA: cross-posted with Andy.
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dales
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by dales »

Suicide via firearm is something that I have both direct and indirect knowledge of.

My grandfather killed himself with a firearm in 1951 before I was born.

A very dear friend of mine at church decided she didn't want to live anymore and killed herself with a .38 revolver.

Questions without answers.

Here's a tid-bit from Vox magazine (that hard right gun suck-up magazine that shills for the NRA)
Part of 11 facts about gun violence in the United States
Gun homicides get far more attention in the popular press, but most gun deaths are the result of suicide. In 2016, the last year for which the CDC provides numbers, 22,938 people committed suicide by firearm, while 14,415 people died in gun homicides. Historical data shows it’s been this way for a while:
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000510/ ... comparison

Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


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Bicycle Bill
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Bicycle Bill »

dales wrote:
“The 12-month period starting Feb. 14, 2018, saw nearly 1,200 lives snuffed out.
How many of those were suicides?

Not wishing to mitigate the numbers, I believe that suicides are often lumped together under "gun deaths" to advance a political agenda.
The article did say that it broke down the deaths by category ... so anyone who can has access to the paper and what appears to be a total of four pages listing the deceased and the ability to count could quickly and easily answer that question.

And your citation of the CDC numbers (22,938 people committed suicide by firearm in 2016) is kinda misleading as it lumps EVERY suicide by persons of ANY age into that number, whereas the Miami Herald article is talking only about gun-related deaths in which the victims were 18 years of age or younger.

And as BSG noted, the problem is the sheer number of firearms that are already out there, with more being pumped into the market every day, and the relatively unfettered access to them.
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Burning Petard
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Burning Petard »

Sheer number of guns out there is a problem. But A Gun is only a clumsy club if there is no ammo.

The '57 chevy is a marvelous machine, even with the basic in-line 6 cylinder engine. It is now more than 60 years old. How many of you can keep one of them running with any degree of dependability?

There are millions of military designed rifles out there(and civilian modifications, such as the Winchester model 70 or the Remington 700) in private hands in the USA that are double that age. With 30 minutes of training I could teach anyone with an average degree of manual dexterity and an IQ above 80 how to keep one of those rifles working reliably for as long as you keep feeding it ammo. Basic training instructors have been doing it for generations.

But AMMO is not so easy to keep feeding into the firearm if you have to build it in a backyard shop. Form the shell from brass tubes, make the propellent from basic chemistry ingredients, mold the bullet is pretty basic. BUT the primer cap is very tricky. Minor error produces major physical damage. One could go to earlier design using black power, but black power produces by-products that are very destructive to the metal parts and proper maintenance of those firearms is not simple.

Rather than trying to control purchase, posssession and transfer of firearms, limits and control of manufacture of Ammo, particularly primer caps, is the choke point for shutting down illicit use of firearms.

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Bicycle Bill »

SOLON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- Authorities say three children and a woman were found dead of apparent gunshot wounds at a home in western Michigan.  Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young says authorities responded Monday to a property near Cedar Springs, a community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Grand Rapids. She says someone discovered the bodies and called 911.

LaJoye-Young said the three children were elementary school-aged and younger but declined to provide further information about the victims' relationships to one another.  She said authorities were still confirming the victims' identities.
Suicides, right, dales?
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Joe Guy
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Joe Guy »

Currently they are investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide.

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Joe Guy wrote:Currently they are investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide.
No doubt.  Three murders (the elementary-age victims), one suicide (a parent — or, more likely, ex-parent — who went wacko).
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Lord Jim
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Lord Jim »

dales wrote:
“The 12-month period starting Feb. 14, 2018, saw nearly 1,200 lives snuffed out.
How many of those were suicides?

Not wishing to mitigate the numbers, I believe that suicides are often lumped together under "gun deaths" to advance a political agenda.
I’m not sure why you think there’s some special distinction?
No, Dale, it's a legitimate question. Why do you (and others) need to make the distinction?


What is, "Because there's no correlation between firearms availability and suicide rates Alex?"

Looks like it's time to repost this for the sixth time:
Lord Jim wrote:I've been conceding that the data that has been brought to the table here does show a higher likelihood of suicide being committed in households with guns than in households without, (as opposed to the data on homicides, which shows nothing of the sort)

But I've also raised the "chicken or the egg" question about it; ie, do the people get guns because they are suicidal, and that's the method they choose, (if guns weren't available, they'd simply choose something else) or does the presence of a gun in the household somehow make the commission of a suicide more likely?

Seems I was right to raise this question; the statistics on suicide rates between countries shows absolutely no correlation between suicide rates and the relative ease with which one can obtain a firearm in any country.

At this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

You will see a table ranking the suicide rate per 100,000 of population for 107 countries. (Given the table pasting formating challenges on the forum, there ain't no way I'm going to take the time to copy and paste it all)

The US ranks 34th. Several countries with much stronger gun control laws rank higher (again, all numbers per 100,000 of population) Japan, (some of the toughest gun control laws in the free world) 21.9, France 15.0, New Zealand, 13.2, Austria, 12.8....

The US comes in at 12.0, but right behind us are tough gun law countries Sweden and Denmark, (each at 11.9) Ireland and the UK (both 11.8) and Canada and Iceland at 11.3....


Now, there are many factors that that go into explaining suicide rates, social, cultural, economic, etc, (for example, it's logical to assume that one of the reasons the rate is so high in Japan is related to the whole "face" and "shame" thing...)

But these numbers pretty conclusively demonstrate is that the relative availability of firearms isn't one of those factors...
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BoSoxGal
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by BoSoxGal »

That’s your scientific method?! :loon

The issue has been studied extensively, by folks who actually utilized scientific method and statistics, and there unquestionably IS a link between easy access to firearms and suicide. Here’s just one of dozens of articles easily Googled about this topic, which discusses the research. I’d say it’s a fair bit more reliable than ‘I’m Lord Jim and I looked at some numbers on Wikipedia and came up with the definitive answer to a long exhaustively studied complex question and that’s that.’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... ide-rates/

For anecdotal results I’ll put you in touch with my friend who lives in a rehab facility after blowing a chunk of his brains out a few years ago . . . or a couple of other friends who will spend the rest of their lives mourning the spouses and children whose brains they scrubbed off the floor at home after the coroner left.
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

But these numbers pretty conclusively demonstrate is that the relative availability of firearms isn't one of those factors...
(I see I am overlapping with BSG posting something similar.)

These numbers demonstrate nothing of the sort. It is interesting to look at numbers within the US where factors such as economic conditions might be a little more consistent than they are between different countries. In other words control to the greatest extent possible for such factors as poverty, opportunity, societal shaming and so on. Clearly it's not possible to eliminate these entirely but we can make a little effort. And doing a study within one country where there is at least some measure of consistency in reporting criteria seems more reasonable than trying to make conclusions about the relative rates in the US and Eritrea (next to each other in the Wikipedia table) based on a single criterion.

Studies on youth suicide within the 50 states have found a strong correlation between suicide rate and gun availability. There was a good piece about this in US News and World Report just last month which is based on a research report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. I'll quote just the abstract (my bolding). The whole piece is available online.
Introduction

Determining whether the prevalence of gun ownership is associated with youth suicide is critical to inform policy to address this problem. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the prevalence of household gun ownership in a state and that state's rate of youth suicide.
Methods

This study, conducted in 2018, involved a secondary analysis of state-level data for the U.S. using multivariable linear regression. The relationship between the prevalence of household gun ownership and youth (aged 10–19 years) suicide rates was examined in a time-lagged analysis of state-level household gun ownership in 2004 and youth suicide rates in the subsequent decade (2005–2015), while controlling for the prevalence of youth suicide attempts and other risk factors.

Results

Household gun ownership was positively associated with the overall youth suicide rate. For each 10 percentage-point increase in household gun ownership, the youth suicide rate increased by 26.9% (95% CI=14.0%, 39.8%).

Conclusions

Because states with high levels of household gun ownership are likely to experience higher youth suicide rates, these states should be especially concerned about implementing programs and policies to ameliorate this risk.

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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I have copied the relevant graph from the piece I cited. I've spent a career looking at correlation graphs of this type and it's pretty convincing to me. Of course if I were reviewing this paper I would want access to the primary data.

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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by BoSoxGal »

There are lots of links to research and methodology in the WashPo article, too.
One 2006 study found that from the 1980s to the 2000s, every 10 percent decline in gun ownership in a census region accompanied a 2.5 percent drop in suicide rates. There are numerous other studies that show similar results.

This pattern becomes clear when looking state by state. The states that have higher rates of gun ownership, where people have more access to guns, also have higher rates of suicide. Suicides are twice as common in states with high gun ownership than those with low gun ownership, even after controlling for rates of mental illness and other factors, according to a 2007 study.

The pattern is clear in other countries, too.

In 2006, the Israeli military enacted a policy preventing soldiers from taking their weapons home from the base on the weekends. Suicides among soldiers younger than 24 decreased by 40 percent.

In Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the government implemented a series of laws in an effort to reduce access to the most lethal methods of suicide, such as a gun buy-back program and regulations on cars making it harder to get a lethal dose of carbon monoxide. By the late 2000s, the suicide rate dropped nearly 40 percent.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Joe Guy
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by Joe Guy »

My personal unscientific conclusion is that the availability of a gun nearby makes an impulsive suicide more likely to occur, especially when someone is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: I got your National Emergency right here

Post by BoSoxGal »

Crickets from LJ . . . surprise, surprise! :roll:
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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