From CNN, Gun control groups emphasize suicides in bid for more public support:
In years past, gun control advocates focused almost exclusively on homicides, whether the mass shootings covered intensively by the national media or the inner-city murders that are a staple of the late local news. Now, groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, as well as public health researchers, are starting to emphasize suicides.
The shift is part of a broader change in looking at gun violence as more of a public health issue and less of a matter of crime.
“When criminologists focus on guns, they focus on crime,” said David Hemenway a professor at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “What we’ve been trying to say is that a person is dead whether or not someone else shot them, they were shot by accident or they shot themselves on purpose.”
…
Zimring said that by putting the focus on victims who are their relatives and neighbors, gun control advocates hope to get the attention of these “apathetic” suburban voters.
“It’s a politically sophisticated way to change the nature of the debate,” he said. “The point is not to increase the percentage of support, but to increase the intensity of support. It’s not to make more people support gun control. It’s to make them care about it.”
I used to play a lot of tennis. There was a “rule” my instructors drilled into me, “Never change a winning strategy, always change a losing strategy.” This same rule is applicable to a lot of endeavors. This includes politics.
Gun control people are losing their war on guns and they know they need to change their strategy. It’s a little subtle but I find the statement “When criminologists focus on guns, they focus on crime” very telling. They know criminological data does not support the case for gun control and they need to change the focus of their attack on our rights. The Heller decision blunted many of the gun control by “principle” (such as “civilized people don’t own guns”) and conformance with “other advanced countries”. The mass shootings excuse for infringement is falling flat because any rational person recognizes that the best way to stop such an attack is exactly what the NRA says, “A good guy with a gun.”
What do they have left? They only have suicides as a possible weapon against us. There is a reason this has not been used much in the past. It’s because it too has fallen flat when it has been attempted. In debates with anti-gun people in the past I have never had them try to defend suicide by gun as a valid reason to place restrictions on the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. And people in the middle will dismiss it even quicker. This is the anti-gun conspirators last ditch tool of desperation and it will fail just as it has in the past.
One observation is that it’s obvious that free people have the right to suicide.
Another is that guns don’t cause suicide. More importantly, the absence of guns does not prevent, or even significantly reduce, suicide.
I suspect the venn diagram of those that push gun control and those that push for right to die/assisted suicide would show a large overlap. So the focus on suicide is very hypocritical at best.
And I hate hypocrites.
They’ll continue to do what they’ve always done. Lie. The bigger the lie the better. It will fall flat with a lot of people, but it will always convince an ignorant few. That’s all they have now and it’s all they’ve ever had.
We’re up against a general anti-rights movement. It lusts for power, and since the acknowledgement of human rights denies power, they must attack human rights. Hence;
Your rights are killing people! Your rights are killing the planet! Your rights are killing cute baby animals! Your rights mean some people are “forced” into poverty! You’re claiming your rights while people are dying – you heartless bastard! Etc., etc., ad infinitum. It’s all they have.
They’ll do anything to keep the argument going because it’s the source of all their power and privilege. If no one fell for it, they’d have nothing but petty crime as their means of sustenance.
What’s really funny, is that the most extreme of the anti-gunners are all for suicide: they flagrantly demand that all gun owners kill ourselves, post their fervent wishes that we all kill each other, kill our children, have our kids kill themselves, kill, kill, kill.
And with the next breathe, claim that suicide is in and of itself a valid reason to ban guns.
Here’s a clue for the anti-gun folks – even if you did manage to take away our guns, all us unwashed rednecks will still be around clogging up your Utopian society. And we’re still smarter than you.
South Korea has a suicide rate of 28.9 per 100,000. The combined rate is 29.8 homicides and suicides per 100,000. Guns are heavily regulated there, and must be kept at the police station.
Japan, where almost no one is permitted to own a gun, has a suicide rate of 18.5 and a homicide rate of 0.3, giving that nation a combined rate of 18.8.
The US has a suicide rate of 12.1 and a homicide rate of 4.7, for a combined rate of 16.8, which is just about half of South Korea’s and 10% less than Japan.
How about some other countries?
India, with gun laws FAR more restrictive than the US, has a combined homicide and suicide rate of 24.6, more than 146% of the US rate.
Canada, where there is severe gun control and handguns are virtually illegal: 18.3 per 100,000- which is 109% of the US rate.
http://street-pharmacy.blogspot.com/2016/01/suicidehomicide-argument.html
Just outlaw suicide. That will stop it.
Absolutely; attempted suicide should be punishable by death.
And if successful, life in prison – WITHOUT PAROLE!
Or they could go back to burying them at a crossroads with a stake through their hearts, whichever.
This is the anti-gun conspirators last ditch tool of desperation and it will fail just as it has in the past.
I only wish it was their last. But they thought of this, and when this fails, they’ll think of something else.
Part of the reason could be that homicides are trending down, and Obama had to admit we are at the lowest level in the UCR data history. But suicides… Those are going up! Because guns!
Who is it that hollers from the rooftops, dawn to dusk, then all through the night:
“MY BODY, MY CHOICE!!!”
The three exclamation marks means they really, really, really mean it. Except when it comes to guns, I guess, as a means to do with my body what I choose to do with it.
Anyone comes at me with an argument about infringing gun rights based on suicide, I’m just gonna yell that at them until they go away.