Seriously thoughtful The three mass shootings this month - are they related to the recession?

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

I did not mean to imply that the motive is changed, just the sociologic translation of the disaffection. The motive is the same, "I want to kill someone." It's just that the situation of what is happening in your society bends those who are so inclined to make that transation to actual behavior take certain pathways. It is soooo much more complex than what the nightly news heads try to sell us.

I'm not sure that sociologic translation really applies, certainly not when you are talking guns vs. bombs or bombs vs. knives. If I understand what you mean by "sociologic translation" is that we assume that someone must have had a political motivation because they used a bomb ... well, that's just silly.

I'd also disagree with the idea that "I want to kill someone" is a motive. Even most serial killers have more motivation than that. I keep coming back to Columbine, I know ... but, those boys brought bombs with them, and they had very specific ideas of the people they wanted to kill and why they wanted to kill them, and there were no politics involved.

I do believe that a lot of whackos join fringe "political" groups because they like the idea of making bombs and killing people ... but my point is the same .... someone who is determined to kill a number of people ... for whatever reason ... is going to find a weapon they can afford and that they can figure out how to use, and they are going to do it.

And, I can not stress this enough ... it is a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to build a bomb than it is to make your own gun and bullets. It's even easier than it is to buy a gun and bullets. It is screamingly easy. My brother and I were building serviceable bombs by the time I was eight and he was seven. It may be distantly related, but it is NOT rocket science.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Then why isn't the murder rate higher in Switzerland? If gun availability causes gun murders, that should be apparent in every country that has high gun availability.

Switzerland has the highest suicide rate in Europe, AND the highest proportion of suicides using guns as the weapon. Do you not class suicide as murder?

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Switzerland has the highest suicide rate in Europe, AND the highest proportion of suicides using guns as the weapon. Do you not class suicide as murder?

Oh, Please don't try to drag a discussion about the "legal" (although I suppose you would call it the "Moral") status of suicide into this as well.
It'll make even more of a mess out of this thread, and get nobody anywhere.
Suicide is offing yourself, not another, and while this may emotionally affect others (especially those of a christian bent), this does not make it murder. Unless you want to argue that every death - that is, every death caused by anything from a failing heart to a slippery road - of a 'loved one' is murder, but I doubt that.
Or was it the question about what to do with the fact that someone had the "intent" to commit suicide, and was that what you were referring to? The "fact" that suicide is so horribly bad/egotistical/etc.?
Because importing that aspect of suicide into this discussion is about the lamest thing you could do, implying that you think it equally bad as going on a killing spree, or planting a bomb/becoming a suicide bomber.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Oh, Please don't try to drag a discussion about the "legal" (although I suppose you would call it the "Moral") status of suicide into this as well.
It'll make even more of a mess out of this thread, and get nobody anywhere.
Suicide is offing yourself, not another, and while this may emotionally affect others (especially those of a christian bent), this does not make it murder.

Until recently, English law referred to suicide as "self-murder", so it's not at all inappropriate to raise it as an issue (IMHO). It is taking away someone's life - your own, certainly, but it is still a crime, although one for which the law deems the offender to be beyond the reach of the law, and hence mandates no punishment. You do not legally have the right to take anyone's life - your own included.

There have been a number of studies which have shown that, in countries in which strict gun control laws have been introduced, suicide rates have fallen as a consequence. See, for example:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics...01059000&ty=st

And PLEASE, ZSB, let's keep the discussion polite, shall we? Disgree with my opinions if you want, but let's not descend to the level of personal insults.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Until recently, English law referred to suicide as "self-murder", so it's not at all inappropriate to raise it as an issue (IMHO).

Until recently, wife-beating and intra-marital rape weren't called crimes at all. "Tradition" is not a valid argument

Originally Posted by HarryT

It is taking away someone's life - your own, certainly, but it is still a crime, although one for which the law deems the offender to be beyond the reach of the law, and hence mandates no punishment. You do not legally have the right to take anyone's life - your own included.

It's not a crime here, as far as I know. Laws are fickle.

And PLEASE, ZSB, let's keep the discussion polite, shall we? Disgree with my opinions if you want, but let's not descend to the level of personal insults.

Where did I insult you?
Importing a discussion about the moral status or implications of suicide into a discussion about going on killing sprees or planting bombs to kill lots of people with is, your personal feelings on the subject notwithstanding, terribly bad form (imho).
If it offends you that I said "lame" in stead of "bad form" the first time, my apologies. I'm of the generation that uses those two terms interchangeably, as they seem to be pretty much synonymous.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you not class suicide as murder?

No I don't. I am also not sure why suicide is illegal.

Once again though, it the suicide rate due to the guns? Would the suicide rate be lower if there were no guns? There are tons of ways to kill yourself. Actually, easier ways. I think it would be very hard to shoot myself. A drug overdose would be much less painful.

You keep quoting correlation not causation examples.

BOb

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Once again though, it the suicide rate due to the guns? Would the suicide rate be lower if there were no guns?

A quote from the article I linked to in post #94 would seem to suggest that the answer is "yes":

Reducing access to firearms in Switzerland would lead to fewer suicides, said Barbara Weil, from the Initiative for the Prevention of Suicide in Switzerland.

"We can prove that in other countries which have tightened their laws concerning the availability of guns, it also changed suicide rates considerably, such as in Canada, Australia and Britain," said Weil.

In Australia, the number of households with guns was halved from 20 to ten per cent during the 1980s and the percentage rate of gun suicides fell from 30 to 19 per cent.

Opponents say people wanting to kill themselves simply turn to other methods, but this is not true, said Irminger.

He pointed to Austria where the introduction of restrictive firearms legislation significantly decreased the rate and percentage of firearm suicides without leading to an increase in other suicide methods.

Perhaps it might be because shooting yourself is a pretty irrevocable act, whereas if you take a drug overdose, you generally have time to change your mind - and many people do.

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by HarryT

[...]Do you not class suicide as murder?

Having known someone that committed suicide (A friend of the family) and someone who was murdered (my cousin) I would say not at all.

I would make one clear distinction between the two. Regardless of what a legal definition may or may not be I personally see murder as a forced act carried out on an unwilling victim. Our friend chose to commit suicide whereas my cousin had his life taken against his will.

That is the first time I have heard of that definition and I do hope it fades out of usage. In my opinion it belittles those that have been killed at the hands of another to use the term with regards to someone who voluntarily chooses to end their own life.

-MJ

[kad032000]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Switzerland has the highest suicide rate in Europe, AND the highest proportion of suicides using guns as the weapon. Do you not class suicide as murder?

Even if you did classify it as murder, it's a separate type of murder. Even the term self-murder, distinguishes it from other murders.

Even if you do classify it as murder, there's no reason that all of the previous arguments don't/can't apply to homicide.

Furthermore, if Switzerland legally considered suicide murder (no idea if they do, although I would have assumed not), then the fact that they don't have a higher murder rate would mean that their total homicides + suicides rate would be less than other nations, and still a desirable effect. (Unless you consider suicides more harmful to society than homicides.)

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Switzerland has the highest suicide rate in Europe, AND the highest proportion of suicides using guns as the weapon. Do you not class suicide as murder?

I do not.

I do not accept that I have the obligation to live, that someone else has a moral right to force me to keep breathing.

My life; my choice of how--and whether--to live it.

I have some moral obligations to not interfere with others' choices of how to live their lives, but no obligation to continue living for their benefit, emotional or otherwise.

And attempting suicide is not illegal... attempting quick, painless suicide is illegal. Anyone is free to take on a job that's very likely to give them cancer; anyone (physically fit) can join the military and work his way into a combat zone and then not dodge bullets; anyone can eat junk food until he's got diabetes and then refuse insulin. Anyone can smoke herself into emphysema and lung cancer. Can destroy her liver with ibuprofin.

It's only fast and comfortable suicide attempts that we have laws against, and are legally allowed to try to stop.

If suicide rates are higher when guns are available, the issue is not guns--it's what's wrong that so many people want out of their lives. Because whatever deaths guns cause, they aren't causing the misery that triggers a suicide attempt.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think it's somewhat more likely to be related to the US's ludicrously lax laws on gun ownership. The murder rate in the US is 70x that of the UK, per head of population, and the overwhelming majority of those murders are carried out with guns. Gun crime happens in the UK, yes, but it's so rare that it's "headline news". In the US it seems to be so depressingly common that it's barely newsworthy.

The original justification for gun ownership in the US was in order to provide an "armed militia", in the days when the country had no standing army. What possible justification is there for it today?

Wiki lists the intentional homicide rate of the US at 5.6 per 100,000 of population, and the UK at 2.03 per 100,000. Not sure if you were just throwing a number out to make a point.....and the US is still way too high.

Firearms account for 68% of the murders in the US, according to the US Bureau of Justice. Oddly enough, the areas with the most strict gun laws (Washington DC, Detroit) also top the murder charts.

You could argue that the low crime rate in Switzerland is BECAUSE there is an assault rifle in every home. It must make would-be burglars nervous to break into a home with an armed and trained occupant.

And according to the founding fathers of the US, the real point of the right to bear arms (apart from defending the nation, ie the militia) was to enable the people to overthrow a tyrannical government or despot. They'd just fought a war for the rights of the people, and felt that the people should always have the ability to fight that war again if needed.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by GlennD

Firearms account for 68% of the murders in the US, according to the US Bureau of Justice. Oddly enough, the areas with the most strict gun laws (Washington DC, Detroit) also top the murder charts.

It might be more useful to correlate crime with (perceived) income equality in a district, or with socio-economic status charts (I'm not sure what has a bigger effect, the fact that differences are so large or the fact that the people are just generally poor and unlikely to get out of it through 'legal' means).
The only reason those areas felt the need to implement these laws was to curb crime, not to foster it. Sane people don't say "hey, there's a ban on gun ownership, let's go kill puppies", nor will 65yo shop owners stand much of a chance of winning when they come up against 18yos with one third their reaction time.
But sure, blame it on the gun control laws.

[GlennD]

I'm not blaming the gun control laws for the high murder rates. I'm pointing out that strict gun control laws seem to be ineffective at reducing murder rates. You could certainly point out that DC (for example) is right next to Virginia which does not have strict gun laws, thus it's easy for a criminal to 'import' a firearm. You'd have to have a nation-wide consistent gun law to have any real hope of impacting gun ownership.

I think murder rates have far more to do with outside stressors (economic situation as you mentioned, large quantities of people in a small area etc) than availability of firearms, legal or not. I simply don't follow that to the conclusion that more gun control laws are necessary.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by GlennD

I think murder rates have far more to do with outside stressors (economic situation as you mentioned, large quantities of people in a small area etc) than availability of firearms, legal or not. I simply don't follow that to the conclusion that more gun control laws are necessary.

And, looking at it from the other side of the spectrum, I simply do not understand this fascination with (having the "right" to own/)owning guns.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

And, looking at it from the other side of the spectrum, I simply do not understand this fascination with (having the "right" to own/)owning guns.

Aw crap. I've tried to stay out, I really have. I keep telling myself everyone to their own opinion.

My 'fascination' has to do with not allowing myself to be a victim if at all possible. I believe in 'live and let live'. Don't bother me, and I won't bother you.

I am not aggressive towards people, believe it or not. I am perceived as friendly and helpful by those whom I deal with.

But look. IF I am ever in a situation where my or my families, or even complete strangers lives are threatened, by some idiot who decides people are picking on him and its his turn, or who has a grudge against someone for whatever reason, or who invades my home or car, I will not hesitate to do my best to be the last one of us standing.

What are you going to do.........call the cops? Reason with them?

Or just die peacefully, knowing you didn't contribute to this 'fascination' with guns.