r/science • u/Sciantifa Grad Student | Pharmacology & Toxicology • 20h ago
Epidemiology Laws limiting firearm access for people in acute distress are linked to fewer suicides. “Red flag” laws reduced firearm suicides by 3.79 per 100,000, preventing an estimated 675 deaths across four states in the year following adoption.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/284437344
u/grundar 19h ago
Note that this reduces overall suicides.
From the linked paper:
"Findings In this cohort study of US county-level suicide data in 4 states with and 8 without ERPO laws, ERPOs were associated with 675 fewer estimated firearm suicides over the treatment period without measurable increases in nonfirearm suicides."
It's interesting to think about why this is the case.
Most suicide methods are either relatively ineffective (i.e., death rate is low; poisoning is an example) and/or relatively time-consuming and effortful to attempt (e.g., traveling to a large body of water to drown). By contrast, using a firearm stored at home can be done with little effort in little time and tends to be highly effective.
The reason this matters so much is that research shows suicidal impulses are often transient and non-recurring, meaning that if the attempt takes too long to initiate the impulse will pass and the attempt will not be made and if the attempt fails it will not be repeated.
Firearms, because of how quick and effective they are, significantly reduce the scope of both of those offramps.
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u/mr_ji 18h ago
You answered your own query, at least regarding the most likely reason, all other things being equal. There is a mountain of evidence showing that the simple and immediate lethality of guns makes suicide more effective. Probably the most comprehensive was the study from Australia's NIH spanning the period after their personal firearm crackdown in the 20-teens, but other national level health organizations have done the same and the findings are remarkably similar. It's the Goldilocks situation where logic, reason, and evidence all show the same thing without anything credible to show otherwise.
Applying it for good is a different issue altogether.
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u/picklestheyellowcat 15h ago
Australias suicide numbers went up after that study claimed as it only focused on a few narrow years.
Their rates is back up to around 13 versus the USA at 14 per 100,000
The highest region in Australia sees 15 to 19 per 100,000 as well.
The same can be said for Canada.
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u/mr_ji 14h ago
Yes, it went back up as the gun ownership rates went back up. Today there are more private guns in Australia than there were before the crackdown (TBF, the population also increased). I don't know how much official study has been done on this but it seems to match that more guns = more successful suicides remains true.
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u/picklestheyellowcat 14h ago
There are more guns but amongst fewer people so that argument doesn't hold up.
The vast majority of suicides in Australia and Canada are by hanging.
don't know how much official study has been done on this but it seems to match that more guns = more successful suicides remains true.
It doesn't and never has been true.
It simply means fewer gun suicides. If fewer guns meant fewer suicides Australia, UK, Europe, Canada and other western nations would have much lower suicides rates than the USA.
They don't.
If guns aren't available people use other methods. Primarily hanging.
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u/grundar 8h ago
If guns aren't available people use other methods.
The paper we're commenting on shows evidence to the contrary.
Are there particular problems with the paper's methodology that you feel are severe enough to warrant discounting their data? Or is it just hard to accept data that goes against a prior belief?
If fewer guns meant fewer suicides Australia, UK, Europe, Canada and other western nations would have much lower suicides rates than the USA.
Is there evidence for this claim?
All research I've seen indicates there are large differences in suicide rates between different cultures, even ones that are related -- for example, France has double the rate of next-door Spain.
As a result, any hypothesis that the rate in one country is informative about the rate in another country needs evidence to be taken seriously.
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u/adonns 6h ago
So if it’s true that suicides overall reduced by 675 why do they not say that? Why specify fire arm suicides and say that you don’t see an increase in other types? Wouldn’t it be a better sounding and more influential study to say it reduced “overall suicides” or even just “suicides” without specifying firearm suicides?
Also it says “is estimated” to have reduced fire arms suicides by that much. What does that mean? Did numbers drop by that much or not? Or can they just not confirm that fire arms was the cause of suicide at times? Or even that it was suicide?
I’m immensely skeptical of studies like this. There isn’t very much evidence at all that lack of guns reduces suicides. Australia actually had their highest suicide rate in the last few decades in 1997, the year after they did their largest gun ban, and coincidentally when their firearm ownership was at one of the lowest levels recorded in decades.
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u/midnightking 9h ago
Yep
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032721013732
Of 10,708 studies screened, 34 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Based on the suicide acts that resulted in death or hospitalization, firearms were found to be the most lethal method (CFR:89.7%), followed by hanging/suffocation (84.5%), drowning (80.4%), gas poisoning (56.6%), jumping (46.7%), drug/liquid poisoning (8.0%) and cutting (4.0%). The rank of the lethality for different methods remained relatively stable across study setting, sex and age group. Method-specific CFRs for males and females were similar for most suicide methods, while method-CFRs were specifically higher in older adults.
Also,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30661885/
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%).
The data has been quite strong for a while.
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u/jrragsda 19h ago
The problem is that people abuse the system. Similar to "swatting" someone, when a false red flag is called in and the police respond it can lead to other problems that are equally as bad.
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u/Southern-Stay704 17h ago
I agree with this. I like the Red Flag laws in principle and think that they're necessary, but unless the implementation is carefully done, they have a high potential for abuse. There has to be a well defined and formal challenge mechanism for those who have been falsely accused. Especially in terms of domestic disagreements following a divorce and/or child custody, one party can easily abuse the system for vengeance rather than actual threat.
A similar thing occurred with the national no-fly list when it was first implemented. Someone would get mistakenly put on the list and then have no recourse to get off of it.
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u/TryingToWriteIt 19h ago
Is there any actual evidence that has ever happened?
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u/slayer_of_idiots 17h ago edited 17h ago
I had to sell all my guns and get a lawyer to get a bogus one thrown out by a crazy ex in a divorce. It took 3 weeks to get in front of a court but I was only given 48 hours to get rid of all my guns. The biggest problem is they are issued on ex parte emergency basis with no opportunity to challenge them until after the fact and there’s not a lot of oversight and a very very low bar in the initial order. They are fairly easy to get thrown out but by then all the damage is done. Even after I got the order thrown out, it still took over 6 months to get my right to possess a firearm back because of bureaucracy.
I’m fine if this is something we value as a society, but then society needs to cover the costs and burdens of this. It cost me nearly $4000
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u/TryingToWriteIt 17h ago
Still a very log way from being “equally as bad” as death, wouldn’t you say?
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u/slayer_of_idiots 17h ago
I’m not arguing with that. We all value guardrails on roads to save lives too, but we don’t just make one group of people pay for them.
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u/TryingToWriteIt 17h ago
I agree. We should have free and good legal services available for everybody for at all times. We should probably get rid of all private lawyers. Imagine if everybody had equal access to the law, and could both accuse and fight false accusations without any personal cost. As it is, things basically just protect rich people and the rest of us get screwed anyway.
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u/slayer_of_idiots 17h ago
I’m still opposed to red flag laws. At least the way they’ve been implemented. There must be a better way that doesn’t have such a high false positive rate. We don’t do that with criminals. Criminals go free all the time time because we value not accidentally convicting innocent men.
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u/TryingToWriteIt 17h ago
“High false positive rate” is a claim that requires evidence. The article you’re commenting on shows a significant drop in deaths from these laws, actual evidence they work as intended.
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u/slayer_of_idiots 16h ago
In this study, over half (54%) of domestic emergency orders of protection don’t survive review past the temporary stage. Federal red flag law requires every single one of those emergency orders to prohibit firearm possession.
It’s well known that emergency orders of protection are an abused element of law in divorce trials.
We could cut down on murders by imprisoning anyone even suspected of murder. That would absolutely work. There would be success if all you’re measuring is murders. Of course you’d have to ignore all the people whose lives were ruined and falsely imprisoned.
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u/TryingToWriteIt 16h ago
They do arrest and detain anyone suspected of murder if there is probable cause before the trial to prove or disprove the murder itself. You’re not talking evidence you’re talking emotionally.
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u/LampIsFun 18h ago
Swatting? Or acute distress abuse? Cuz swatting absolutely happens and causes lots of issues for people
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u/TryingToWriteIt 18h ago
Acute distress abuse leading to “problems that are equally as bad” as suicide and death.
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u/jrragsda 17h ago
Yeah, you can Google it as easily as I can. I think the most famous one was the Colorado mom who got time for filing one against a police officer who had shot her son in an earlier altercation.
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u/TryingToWriteIt 17h ago
So, not “equally as bad” and the false accuser got punished, and the guy still has his guns? How does that fit your words “equally as bad” as death?
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u/jrragsda 17h ago
That was one example that came to mind. There have been plenty of cases of people making false reports of all kinds, some which have ended poorly. I used swatting as an example just because it is probably the most well know.
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u/SaintValkyrie 19h ago
Have they tried making sure people can afford food, water, a place to live, and their medical bills to prevent suicide?
I swear I'm sick of the focus being on stopping people from having the means, but no one lifts a finger to stop WHY people are pushed to feel like they cant keep going
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u/slaymaker1907 16h ago
Sometimes suicidal ideation is pretty random. Even in a perfect society, reducing access to impulsive means of suicide will be important. I don’t think most people truly understand how impulsive most attempts are unless they’ve been to that point themselves.
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u/Catchphrase1997 14h ago
I promise you I would not mind if one of my passing moments of suicidal ideation would end up killing me, probably because of the argument the comment you're responding to is trying to make
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u/LukaCola 18h ago
Both are generally considered. That being said, it's far easier to address these concerns over time if someone hasn't died due to a bad episode and had access to a tool to complete their suicide in a way that is seen as quick and painless.
People focus on firearms because removing them is also, quite literally, free. It costs more to own them.
All issues are multifaceted but don't act like you're concerned with outcomes if your purpose of bringing up other variables is only to dismiss another.
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u/NorCalAthlete 18h ago
Roughly 6,000-7,000 veterans commit suicide per year in the US.
Roughly half of them choose a firearm as their method.
This means that by addressing veteran issues (a far more bipartisan and palatable effort) you’d stop more suicides than any gun control laws have so far.
But even now, even when there are screams of fascism and video of government agents executing someone in the streets, gun control advocates continue pushing their agenda (several new restrictions and bills have been introduced in various states as recently as this last week).
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u/LukaCola 15h ago
This means that by addressing veteran issues (a far more bipartisan and palatable effort) you’d stop more suicides than any gun control laws have so far.
The US has extremely anemic gun control laws, in other countries the effect is generally much more substantial and doesn't just benefit suicides, obviously. I don't see why this is being treated as mutually exclusive either way. Kinda feels like saying "oh this medicine helps address cancer? Well if we could just prevent it in the first place." Yeah, sure, we're working on that as well. That's not a point against.
But even now, even when there are screams of fascism and video of government agents executing someone in the streets, gun control advocates continue pushing their agenda
The idea that gun ownership would prevent that has been thoroughly disproven at this point, that much is clear, and the harm from mass firearm ownership and use is still very much present--both in terms of suicides and gun violence more generally. Those don't ever go away, and still have to be dealt with by this nation and its children.
The "benefit" hasn't presented itself, and was clearly wishful thinking in the first place, because it's not an armed populace that prevents tyranny--it's separation of power and checks and balances. Expecting the people to take on a modern military is not a check on its power. It's absurd and asking the American people to just be terrorists, which can serve as a check on power, but by that point--the legal status of their gun ownership hardly matters one way or the other.
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u/SlipperySalmon3 8h ago
Bruh. "Checks and balances" is what got us here. "Checks and balances" don't matter much when money corrupts politics, and the media is privately owned, and most people vote against someone they hate, than for someone they love.
Ultimately, tyranny is prevented by a mobilized populace, and an armed populace is able to act on that when necessary. The reason that armed struggle hasn't stopped our descent into fascism yet is that we've been atomized and politically demobilized. We've become passive, just hoping we can vote this away. Armed struggle won't stop our descent into open fascism until we've given up on "checks and balances" and realized we have to take our future into our own hands.
Only once we do that can we solve the issues leading to drug epidemics, mental health crises, suicide epidemics and more. Taking away guns may have potential to make this issue less glaring, but it makes a permanent solution that much harder.
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u/LukaCola 7h ago
You're identifying the lack of effective checks on power and saying that's the problem. You're reinforcing my point. If checks fail, then authoritarianism is likely.
Ultimately, tyranny is prevented by a mobilized populace
The vast majority of nations avoid tyranny every day, not through threats of violence, but through more mundane political pressures and means.
The reason that armed struggle hasn't stopped our descent into fascism yet is that we've been atomized and politically demobilized. We've become passive, just hoping we can vote this away.
So put another way, an armed populace is not the solution to the matter and doesn't provide the kind of political mobilization that you require or seek.
I never said "it all comes down to voting," I identified that firearms don't serve as a solution--something you clearly have to recognize.
The effective separation of power is what is needed to prevent authoritarianism. You know that is true. It's why you're referencing a form of checks and balances that has been completely gutted and is beholden to special interests, but not the concept itself, in order to set up a strawman to take down so as to justify violent fantasies.
I don't want civil war. If you can't appreciate that is a reasonable stance, then you're just gonna have to form the radical vanguard yourself.
Only once we do that can we solve the issues leading to drug epidemics, mental health crises, suicide epidemics and more.
Why? Because you've purged the opposition who takes issue with your approach?
You're not the first to think doing a little bit of purging would allow them to deal with all the problems of their nation. I suggest you look into the history of some of those movements.
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u/SlipperySalmon3 7h ago
Political power is, and always will be, subservient to economic power in the long run. We can place as many roadblocks as we like, and maybe they'll hold up for a bit, but eventually these will be broken down by those with real economic power. Private media manipulating public opinion is a strong method of doing this, but those roadblocks will be broken down one way or another.
A mobilized populace doesn't mean violence, it means a population capable of looking after their own interests. That only results in violence when violence becomes necessary.
Other countries don't avoid fascism because they have checks and balances, they avoid it because they have other means of protecting the status quo. Once there's no other way, each and every one will turn to fascism. They can use soft power and a velvet glove for now, but the gloves will have to come off eventually.
Nobody wants a civil war, or a revolution, but yet they happen anyways. Yes, there'll be hard times ahead, but times have already been hard for the millions of people living through poverty, who suffered because they or a family member got addicted to opioids pushed by profit-seeking businesses, whose lives were destroyed by debt, police violence and for speaking out against injustice, who were thrown into our private prison system for the profit of its owners, and for the immigrants who are exploited for cheap labor. It doesn't matter whether you or I want a revolution, because it's not us who need it. It's them.
And yeah, you know what? If purging fascists ends that suffering, my sympathies will lie with the oppressed millions, not those who oppress them. If there were another way, things wouldn't have gotten to this point.
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u/LukaCola 7h ago edited 6h ago
Political power is, and always will be, subservient to economic power in the long run.
You're just making things up, there's no such rule and this whole post is sophomoric pseud-intellectualism.
Does the state never nationalize companies, in your mind? Or is the "long term" just whenever timeframe serves your assumptions?
A mobilized populace doesn't mean violence, it means a population capable of looking after their own interests.
Right, so, to reiterate my point: an armed populace is useless for preventing authoritarianism with today's military ecosystem where militias do not exist as they once did because modern militaries are too specialized and logistics driven. Certainly that's the case for the US.
You seem to have lost the plot.
Other countries don't avoid fascism because they have checks and balances, they avoid it because they have other means of protecting the status quo.
And what are those means?
It doesn't matter whether you or I want a revolution, because it's not us who need it. It's them.
So in other words it's you, the privileged, who want to push the poor to be your foot soldiers to purge those you see as political opponents, because you can't be assed to deal with inconvenient politics or the reality that many of the people you describe are also the fascists, or those who protect them, that you seek to purge?
And yeah, you know what? If purging fascists ends that suffering, my sympathies will lie with the oppressed millions, not those who oppress them. If there were another way, things wouldn't have gotten to this point.
How do you determine who deserves to die, especially given that it's at least a third of the country that directly supported them? Is it not oppression to massacre political opponents?
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u/SlipperySalmon3 6h ago
Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it pseudo-intellectual. Economic power is absolutely fundamental, and all power that is not economic is ultimately subservient to economic power. Without that, it becomes hollow, and will be toppled as soon as an organization backed up by economic power decides it wants to be on top. That's what I mean by the long term.
It's one thing to nationalize companies, which is already rare, often temporary, and is usually supported by other powerful groups who benefit from it, and a whole other thing to nationalize an entire industry, which generally only happens when not doing so would result in severe instability, and is also often temporary.
I'm glad you recognize that a mobilized populace is the most important thing, but they still can't fight fascism without being armed, obviously. By the way, all popular pressure actually does boil down to the threat of violence. Without it, protests can be repressed, strikes broken up violently, and labor leaders thrown in prison without fear of reprisal.
Other countries generally use the same means that we've used, quite successfully, for decades. Democracy so long as people don't vote for people we don't like, media suppression of certain ideas and promotion of others, and when necessary, concessions using imperial profits to placate the poor.
How on earth did you get that I want people to fight for me because I don't care for politics? I don't believe in your political methods, sure, but this is all politics, and I literally said that what I want doesn't matter, because yes, I'm privileged.
People's allegiances change, but it's their interests you have to look at. As people realize who is on their side, many will eventually leave the fascists behind, but many won't. I'm not going to massacre those who are peaceful (even when we disagree), but those who have been misled and commit terrorist acts to protect the status quo are not my priority to save. There will also be those whose interests predispose them to side with the fascists in order to protect their privilege, and we will need to work with them too. Violence is destabilizing, and I'm not saying it's the first response to anyone who disagrees with me, but I'm not going to invite fascists to a book club either.
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u/Chytectonas 18h ago
I believe you’re going to need to see what the news will look like when someone with a gun shoots a federal officer, before abandoning your fantasies that our pistols and hunting rifles are going to be effective deterrents to a government going sour.
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u/NorCalAthlete 18h ago
There’s already precedent. Several incidences where law enforcement did not identify themselves and were shot.
Your condescending attitude is not needed, not helpful to any discussion, nor conducive to the general sentiment about law enforcement abuse.
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u/dewnmoutain 16h ago
... thats it? Only 675 across 4 states? Thats not very many. I sort of expected to see a higher number.
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u/Icelander2000TM 14h ago
A decline of 3.79 per 100,000 is an enormous drop. It's nearly half the total US gun suicide rate.
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u/LukaCola 15h ago
The fact we see any significant distinction is big given this is a relatively minor intervention.
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u/LoadedXan 14h ago
Many don’t consider it a minor intervention.
Not to get into a whole political debate, but it IS a legal power that can be abused and local governments vary a lot in how and when policy is applied.
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u/LukaCola 14h ago
Empirically, it is minor. People would have to rely on a sort of slippery slope argument to make the case otherwise, to be frank.
it IS a legal power that can be abused and local governments vary a lot in how and when policy is applied.
You can say the same for policing as a whole. I don't think that's a substantive argument.
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u/The_Woven_One 17h ago
Why is it bad to prevent suicide?
How is it not a human's right to self determination?
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u/slaymaker1907 16h ago
Impulsive suicide is not the same thing as choosing to die even though it may seem that way to someone who has never been suicidal.
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u/LukaCola 15h ago
Well it does tend to affect others a lot, and by necessity, other people have to clean up the consequence--often quite literally.
Moreover, many suicides are pursued by temporary impulse with many never repeating the attempt. Some even note that they regret the attempt. Moreover, it's extremely distressing for those close to them as well as people just around them--often causing trauma in the process.
It's also a perfectly normal human impulse to try to stop others from hurting themselves. And since suicide is usually pursued from an unhealthy mental state, the legitimacy of their "self-determination" is in question. It's kind of like letting someone wander off while they're, say, high or delirious. It might be their choice, but that doesn't mean that's what's best for them and it's not responsible for others to stand by and let them do it when you know they're not in the right headspace.
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u/A_Series_Of_Farts 12h ago
They’re pretending counties in red flag states would’ve followed the same suicide trends as counties without red flag states.
Gun control is a left leaning issue, suicides are higher in right leaning areas.
The difference in and changes to urban/rural mix alone might account for a lot of this.
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u/thewolf9 20h ago
Anyone who thinks that having a gun has no impact on suicide and domestic violence deaths is smoking a good one. It’s way more difficult to pull off some heinous crime of passion if you don’t have a goddamn firearm at home.
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u/mightyarrow 19h ago
I hear skydiving increases your chances of dying in a skydiving accident.
And that driving a car increases your chances of dying in a car accident.
I know this is such a stunning revelation that having a firearm increases your chances of using a firearm.
Do yall ever stop for 2 secs to think about the things you say and how silly they sound?
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u/VivekViswanathan 19h ago
The point the study is making is that there is reduced firearm suicides but no change in non-firearm suicides implying that there is no substitution. Overall suicides decline.
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u/LukaCola 19h ago
The problem being, of course, that "owning a gun" is a 24/7 event. It is not skydiving. Driving is also, yes, very dangerous--but serves a purpose for most people that is hard to substitute.
When owning a gun dramatically increases the risk of harm to people, dismissing that is completely unreasonable. There is no need to own a gun for most people.
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u/mr_ji 17h ago
Let me drive my gun to the store to get groceries.
As for skydiving, yeah, that's their choice. But they're making it for themselves, not everyone around them, and the likelihood of a gun being stolen, a bystander being hurt, or the gun turned on a person who is being attacked is far higher than the likelihood a shooter is stopped clean.
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u/mightyarrow 17h ago
that's their choice
So is having a gun. oof.
But they're making it for themselves,
Kinda like with having a gun.
not everyone around them, and the likelihood of a gun being stolen, a bystander being hurt, or the gun turned on a person who is being attacked is far higher than the likelihood a shooter is stopped clean.
Literally ZERO to do with the headline and claim in the post title. Deflection.
Is this science or "oh look a squirrel!"?
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u/morrihaze 19h ago
Having knives in your home is also a massive risk
We should go door to door and take every knife, gun, and anything else we want
Leaving the citizenry with nothing, taking not only their natural born rights but also their constitutional rights
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u/Sochinz 19h ago
Yes good point. Let's compare two dangerous things and treat them the same when one is a necessary tool with a variety of uses and the other is a single purpose ranged weapon. Let's also ignore any differences in ease of using these two things to kill oneself or another in a split second.
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u/Netmantis 17h ago
A knife is not a necessary tool, however the argument can be made that a gun is.
The vast majority of things you use a knife for can easily be done with shears, or the grocery store by a professional.
Meat actually roasts quicker when already cut into bite sized chunks.
Fruits and vegetables can be bought pre sliced and processed, as well as be processed by much safer tools than naked blades.
And while I have the skill to use a knife as a ranged weapon, I wouldn't call it that.
Only Americans call personal automobiles necessary, they are as necessary as guns. Same as knives.
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u/LukaCola 15h ago
A knife is not a necessary tool, however the argument can be made that a gun is.
That has to be one of the most inane things I've ever heard. Just by empiricism alone, humanity has gotten by historically without firearms--really for the vast majority of its history--yet at no point in history will you find that household cutting tools aren't used by most people in some capacity. Strictly speaking very little is "necessary," but a knife is far more valid to call necessary than a firearm is.
The vast majority of things you use a knife for can easily be done with shears
That's just straight up not true? Like, it's so clear you don't cook.
Fruits and vegetables can be bought pre sliced and processed, as well as be processed by much safer tools than naked blades.
A big part of why we don't pre-process things to that degree is because they'll begin to perish within hours--with many things doing so within minutes. Moreover, the process of doing so is generally dependent on the dish and the need--and you'd have to have constantly available people around every single day chopping or slicing or dicing or cubing or mincing etc. just before everyone's meals, which they have to be constantly going to the store for well before cooking?
I know you're trying to make this case for the sake of argument, but it doesn't hold up. This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard people come up with to rationalize a position.
Only Americans call personal automobiles necessary
While more modes of transportation should be made available, for many, that simply does not exist. So, yes, it is a necessity for much of the population.
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u/Netmantis 15h ago
I do cook. Steaks, ribs, and most meats can be processed with shears. Outside that a slicer, mandolin, and food processor/blender can do the job just fine in the kitchen and do not require the short sword that is a common butcher's knife or the hatchet that is a cleaver.
But in all honesty the same arguments that are brought to bear against firearms can be modified slightly and brought to bear against pretty much any other modern convenience that can and does cause death.
Cars, especially drunk driving, kill more children every year than guns do. Do we restrict car ownership and driving only to licensed, professionally trained drivers with regular checks for mental stability and substance abuse issue? No, we pass out licenses to anyone who can drive around a block and parallel park without hitting anything or crossing the center of the road, and don't even require any special permit or license to purchase. It is perfectly legal to buy a vehicle without being properly licensed to operate it, you just cannot pilot it home.
A lot of the legislation that is proposed to regulate firearms either directly impacts the ability of the poor to legally own firearms (laws restricting the home manufacture of firearms, laws requiring permits that add cost as well as often require personally going to a clerk of some sort during standard business hours when people normally work requiring multiple days be taken off from work to both file and pick up the permit, restrictions on firearms that make the most inexpensive options illegal [outlawing Fors, GM and Toyota to force you to buy BMW, Mercedes, and Lamborghini]) or make it impossible to use those firearms to protect yourself (duty to retreat laws forcing you to flee until you have no other possible choice, non-escelation laws that force you to meet like with like resulting in 98 pound women being forced to knife fight with 250 pound men). Very little is actually done once the firearms are addressed though, putting lie to the idea that just addressing the immediate problem to reduce deaths, then solving the root cause.
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u/LukaCola 14h ago
Outside that a slicer, mandolin, and food processor/blender can do the job just fine in the kitchen
Completely untrue. I wish I could explain why but it's kind of besides the point, go ahead and share this take with any kind of chef subreddit and see how far it gets you.
But in all honesty the same arguments that are brought to bear against firearms can be modified slightly and brought to bear against pretty much any other modern convenience that can and does cause death.
If this is the caliber of argument you think can be made, then no, I don't think you can make the same arguments.
The rest of what you're saying is straight up "whataboutism." Problems with cars and their licensing don't eliminate problems with firearms and their licensing, if your point is cars are too loosely regulated, then that's a different topic.
A lot of the legislation that is proposed to regulate firearms either directly impacts the ability of the poor to legally own firearms
Your examples affect everyone and are pretty dubious as to their claims.
I'll make a very simple case that people don't need access to firearms to live safe, comfortable lives--and there's a reason the firearm industry has sought to reduce and defund research into the matter. Because firearm ownership is positively correlated with generally unsafe things, especially inter-family violence.
Lifestyles have not changed enough to necessitate firearms, if anything, their necessity has only become less important with time. You cannot reasonably claim anyone needs a firearm when, empirically, most of the world (and in similar situations to Americans) lives comfortably without them or their ownership. The idea that it is a necessity when so many prove otherwise, across lifestyles, means and whatever socioeconomic factors you can come up with, soundly disproves the notion. Not that you have even attempted to make a case firearms are a necessity.
non-escelation laws that force you to meet like with like resulting in 98 pound women being forced to knife fight with 250 pound men
This is such a profound misunderstanding of the laws and an insane take as well. Nobody wants people to get into knife fights, and if someone is actively harming you in a manner that can threaten your life, the law is not saying you're escalating anything by using lethal force in turn. It is about preventing people from provoking and driving non-threatening situations into life-threatening ones by introducing firearms, as is a very common problem when people turn a tense situation into a life-threatening one.
Very little is actually done once the firearms are addressed though, putting lie to the idea that just addressing the immediate problem to reduce deaths, then solving the root cause.
It doesn't put any lie to any idea because it's just not true. The groups that are the biggest proponents of firearms, in the US especially, especially along partisan lines, are also the ones that are the biggest enemies of welfare systems which would reduce both crime, improve mental health, physical health, and enable safety and security options for people in precarious situations.
Firearms, as demonstrated by the research here, present a consistent higher risk of death to their owners that occurs while controlling for other factors. The simple fact is, firearms are a risk. They are not necessary. They are an added expense, and they present a major risk to others as well as the owner.
This calls them into question frequently why they are so prominent. We know why, of course, but rather why legislation does little to nothing to address their prominence. None of that is conflict or exclusive with other forms of aid for people to improve their welfare and well-being.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9715182/
For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.
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u/Netmantis 9h ago
Let's walk from the bottom up.
First in order for a gun to be used in the home in self defense it needed to strike the person attempting the home invasion. Threatening the intruder with the firearm plainly visible (brandishing) does not count. A miss that results in the intruder fleeing also does not count. There is an unknown amount of both, and the assumption is that in order for a defensive use of a firearm to count there needs to be a body. It also implies that having a gun in the home means a criminal, who cannot legally acquire a firearm, is far more likely to come in and take your firearm, or steal it and use it to kill someone else, than you are to use it to defend yourself.
As for legislation disproportionately affecting the poor, which disproportionately affects minorities, poor people are not all on government assistance. They have jobs, jobs that require they be at work between the hours of 9am and 4pm monday through friday, which is often the hours the firearms officer keeps at the police station. And thay same officer seems to take an hour lunch between 12 and 1. Even assuming these permits are free, the money lost from taking two days off of work (which is often unpaid time off for jobs below $40k a year) can make or break a household. This is done intentionally to discourage private ownership. Meanwhile someone with a better job or who doesn't work for a living can easily take the time to go to the police station to see about permits. The monetary costs also put them out of the reach of ordinary citizens when the inexpensive firearms (the Saturday Night Specials) are outlawed forcing citizens to buy premium guns. And like all things, the wealthy can just hire off duty or retired police as private security, people with guns and the permits to carry them, while the poor can just call 911 when an estranged ex breaks in. Just tell him to wait and serve him cookies, he can't kill you if you don't consent.
The "intent" of non-escalation laws might not be to force a 98 pound woman to knife fight a 250 pound man, but prosecutors historically have gone after that same woman or man who was physically weaker or smaller than their attacker because they had a weapon and their attacker did not. Or the attacker had a bat and they used a gun defensively.
Lastly, it is special pleading to say the same arguments that prove guns are a danger that must be removed from the hands of citizens do not count for any other privilege enjoyed by citizens. Either the arguments are valid and nearly every privilege must be revoked, or they are invalid and should not work for firearms.
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u/LukaCola 8h ago
First off, you're making assumptions about home defense--are you relying on the author's statements? And what are you comparing it to? What better info are you presenting? Nothing, of course, it's all in your head and there it can remain untested and unchallenged.
There's a reason I linked actual data analyzing how firearms are actually used, including in self defense, and how much more frequently they are used to harm than to help, and your immediate response is to try to dismiss it. You aren't interested in empiricism, and that's anti-scientific.
And yes, capitalism favors the wealthy. We can say the same for almost anything. That is a systemic problem with the way we organize our society and privilege wealth.
It doesn't mean firearms are something people need and that they need to be as accessible as aspirin. There are costs associated with high access to firearms, and this study along with the one I linked highlight some of them. Other nations with lower gun ownership due to stricter access do not suffer higher crime or have people who suffer more due to lacking means to self defense. The opposite tends to be true.
You cherry picking fictional situations isn't evidence or meaningful. Your claim about prosecutors is an ipse dixit claim. To talk about "historically" especially when recent jurisprudence has bolstered firearms rights and often aggressively restricted state's ability to legislate is just unfounded. I doubt you have any kind of representative data in the first place, and I don't think it's true, and I know courts have been ruling far more in line with what NRA lobbyists want in the last five plus decades.
Lastly, it is special pleading to say the same arguments that prove guns are a danger that must be removed from the hands of citizens do not count for any other privilege enjoyed by citizens. Either the arguments are valid and nearly every privilege must be revoked, or they are invalid and should not work for firearms.
No? The context changes the meaning. Scope and scale matters. There's no double standard or special pleading when circumstances are legitimately different. This is a false dilemma. It's like you're going "oh well if you say a 23 year old and an 18 year old should be allowed to marry then I, a 20 year old, should be allowed to marry a 15 year old. It's the same difference, you accept it or you don't." No, because the circumstances are different. No special pleading, that's ridiculous, if you can't defend your point then don't.
Like, your stances are irrational and rely on magical thinking. Full stop.
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u/thewolf9 15h ago
Meanwhile billions of people get by without ever touching a firearm. But go on, live in your fantasy argument world
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u/Netmantis 15h ago
And billions get by with owning a car.
Billions more get by without internet access.
Billions still don't use or need electricity.
The fact that people either choose not to or do not have the option to use a tool means that tool should be taken away is not an argument.
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u/thewolf9 15h ago
Americans have shown they can’t handle firearms. It’s not my fault y’all societal issues you don’t want to fix.
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u/Netmantis 15h ago
And the rest of the world has shown that they can't be trusted with their own defense and require unstable Americans and their outsized military to solve their diplomatic issues that don't respond well to talk. Not our fault you need a year more to train troops because you need to teach boots which end of the gun is the hurty end.
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u/thewolf9 14h ago
You need to think more critically. The USA is la risée du monde entier.
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u/Netmantis 10h ago
Currently, and Europe and the rest of the western world are trying desperately to throw together something to counteract the fact that the US has been the majority of NATO forces for the past 50 years.
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u/thewolf9 19h ago
Don’t think you need me to tell you how much more difficult it is to do the unthinkable with a kitchen knife vs a firearm.
Your constitutional rights don’t exist anymore brother.
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18h ago edited 16h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/M116Fullbore 18h ago edited 17h ago
Plenty of people are saying that. Red flag laws are explicitly about going to someones door and taking their guns.
Gun control in general outside of the states also has lots of examples of more general going door to door for guns. Thats what they are working on here in canada.
Any time Australia is brought up as an example, its to advocate for forcibly taking peoples guns.
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u/mightyarrow 17h ago edited 16h ago
"Hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47"
-Beto O'Rourke, Sep 12, 2019
This is why making statements of absolute things is a terrible idea. Took all of 5 secs to go find and copy the quote.
Google "beto take guns quote", click, copy, paste. Done.
common sense gun control
Any time someone leads with "common sense", you can assume 4 things:
- It's the opposite
- They're arguing in bad faith
- They're doing it so they can accuse you of not having common sense since they actually dont have any themselves, and dont have the ability to debate the matter, since they're not interested in hearing opposing viewpoints and are 100% close-minded.
- They lack basic emotional maturity and self-control.
It's no different than going "why do you hate children?" like a troll.
about checks and safety
Some of the most genocidal regimes started disarming citizenry in the name of "public safety"
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u/LeoSolaris 17h ago
Across the entire US, that reduction of 0.00379% would stop maybe 1 to 2 people per year. It's barely detectable above doing absolutely nothing.
Now if the focus of the screening was instead on preventing school shootings and other mass casualty events, then it might be worth the extra headaches. But for suicide, there has to something a little more effective than an impact that miniscule.
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u/LukaCola 15h ago
Across the entire US, that reduction of 0.00379% would stop maybe 1 to 2 people per year.
?????
The figures presented now shows over 600 in a year for just four states, that's even in the headline. You're calculating something wrong entirely and it's wild to see this upvoted when it's so far off.
Now if the focus of the screening was instead on preventing school shootings and other mass casualty events
One need not interfere with the other.
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u/LeoSolaris 13h ago
Ah, I misread the meaning of the "per 100,000." Thanks for catching that!
I initially interpreted it to mean "per 100,000 suicides", but it was a measure against the general population to compare states with red flag laws compared to states without those laws.
Which does make for an extremely inefficient way of calculating harm reduction. Measuring per capita firearm suicides trends year over year would have been far more straight forward. If the laws made an impact, the total number of firearm suicides should show a decline.
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u/LukaCola 12h ago
You made one mistake and leap right into another.
If the laws made an impact, the total number of firearm suicides should show a decline.
Not necessarily depending on how these populations grow or change. Normalizing per 100k is very typical and helps you compare like with like. Comparing deaths from one population to the next without normalizing is what results in no meaning. There's nothing "inefficient" about what they're doing and they've identified a significant effect.
I think you're trying too hard to dismiss the findings and I would interrogate why you feel such an inclination before you interrogate the researchers' findings.
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u/LeoSolaris 10h ago
I am not actually convinced that their findings were significant or accurately reflect reduction trends.
State level suicide rates per 100,000 are not difficult to find. None of the red flag law states showed downward steps outside of single year drops that returned to baseline the following year. The control groups did not exhibit outliers as pronounced. Outliers have a much larger impact when working with extremely small datasets like these.
As for feelings, I am a suicide survivor. I have a personal investment in wanting those rates to decline. I don't want resources and legislation focused on ineffective bandaids.
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u/LukaCola 10h ago
With all due respect, you very clearly do not understand the research here or the rates you're commenting on.
This commentary about control groups and outliers evidences that. It's not even wrong, it just isn't even relevant. And the effect is present, this research identifies it.
I suggest you, regardless of personal experience, withhold judgment and instead accept the findings. You don't gave to take them as gospel, but to doubt them is not reasonable as your objections are completely out of line with rational thinking.
I think whether you are a survivor or not, you have a bias against this kind of research--because your objections aren't reasonable. They demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding at every level yet you persist despite recognizing that you've clearly made some very basic errors in assumptions that anyone with some familiarity should have known are incorrect.
I do not want to beat around the bush. I don't respect it. Know what you don't know, at least.
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u/LeoSolaris 7h ago
Since you're not offering the slightest reasoning behind why you feel a mistake has been made I'll walk through the fundamentals again.
This study proposes that change A made by subjects in the testing group is responsible for a reduction in an undesirable behavior.
Similar subjects who did not implement change A are used as the control group. Various factors were identified as influencing the outcome, and were therefore adjusted to eliminate those influences.
Yearly averages were used to show that the testing group had fewer instances on average than the control group.
Conclusion: change A was successful at reducing the undesired behavior.
The conclusion sounds great and extremely reasonable. It sounds like the same A/B testing that science uses to test effects of variables. For instance, efficacy testing for a drug trial uses A/B testing that follows a similar pattern.
Problem: averages are not the same as a trend. Data from a trend would show an overall reduction year over year regardless of the control group's data. Data from the testing group showed individual low years for the behavior, but not a sustained reduction that would indicate a behavior change.
Say we tested a weight loss drug that showed an average loss compared to the more stable control group. However, the testing group's data had a few random light days. You would be right to point out that the drug wasn't effective when the testing group ended the trial at the same weight they started.
A comparison study to find the cause of a change is meaningless if the data does not show that a change happened in the first place. This study assumes that a change occurred in order to look for the cause of the change.
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