CDZ Gun Fatalities: Public Safety or Mental Health Issue?

[jwoodie]

According to the statistics I have seen, 2/3 of gun-related fatalities in the U.S. are suicides. This raises the question of whether public safety or mental health is the greater problem in the debate over gun control measures. If the latter, are we willing to allow our most personal information to be released to a national registry, subject to the whims and foibles of faceless federal bureaucrats?

 

[oldsoul]

Fist off, I do agree with you. However, in the spirit of the CDZ, can you provide links to these statistics, so all can reveiw them?

 

[Pogo]

Isn't this an echo of this thread? Are they not the same thing?

 

[320 Years of History]

Isn't this an echo of this thread? Are they not the same thing?

I wondered the same thing.

 

[FA_Q2]

Isn't this an echo of this thread? Are they not the same thing?

No. One is asking if it is a mental health issue the other is on registration. It may have wandered that direction but this topic can easily stand in its own thread.

 

[320 Years of History]

According to the statistics I have seen, 2/3 of gun-related fatalities in the U.S. are suicides. This raises the question of whether public safety or mental health is the greater problem in the debate over gun control measures. If the latter, are we willing to allow our most personal information to be released to a national registry, subject to the whims and foibles of faceless federal bureaucrats?

Isn't this an echo of this thread? Are they not the same thing?

No. One is asking if it is a mental health issue the other is on registration. It may have wandered that direction but this topic can easily stand in its own thread.

On that basis -- and recognizing that you are speaking for the OP, but your reply not not be his/her intended answer -- my answer is below.

In the debate over gun control measures, public safety is the thing which is sought by the gun control measures; however, public safety is not a problem; public safety is a quality of being within a given society and/or geography. The extent to which the public's safety is less "safe" than it could otherwise be, and reasons why that extent exists, are the problems. Mental health, on the other hand, is a problem, and it happens to be one of the problems that contributes to there being less overall public safety than could otherwise exist.

A key to understanding the "gun debate" is understanding the distinction between a state of existence, a problem, the cause of a problem, and the impact(s) of a problem. In the "gun debate," gun control measures are proposed as ways to ameliorate, to some degree, some problems in order to boost the overall extent of public safety the citizenry observe on the whole.

There are, of course, other basic distinctions one must understand, not the least of which is at what problem a given solution approach aims to solve, in part or in total. One of the other things one needs to understand clearly: the stated goal of any given measure that is proposed. To the best of my knowledge, no gun control proponents expect the proposed solution options to fully solve all of any one problem or all of the problems that exist.

The ends are important to understand, especially in the "gun debate" because quite often, one finds gun control opponents attempting to evaluate the measures not in terms of what their advocates seek to accomplish, but rather what the gun control opponents think/want to see be accomplished. Those two need not be the same at all, but to the extent they are not, parties in the two groups aren't discussing the same topic, even though it may seem to "mental midgets" as though they are.

FWIW, I took a lot of time to compose a post, for a different "gun debate" thread (CDZ - Gun-free zones in VA Hospitals - Open invitation to terrorists | Page 6 | US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum), that lays out what the central assertion is pertaining to gun control. There you'll also find a discussion that identifies the logical fallacies associated with just one aspect of the anti-gun control "side's" objections to gun control. Though they are specific to the argument the other member presented, they without question appear over and over in "gun debate" discussions. (An assortment of both the main and "B-list" fallacies found on the fallacy reference page to which I linked also appear over and over.)

Lest one think from the comments above that I'm equivocating, I'm not. I've presented the matter as I have because of the way this thread's OP question being framed as an improper disjunctive syllogism ("whether" followed by the remainder of black bold text) and it makes a faulty comparison (mental health and public safety). That's even before considering:

• whether suicide compromises public safety or whether it is a consequence of impaired mental health, or both, or neither.
• even if the two main things the OP post correlates/compares were of the same ilk -- that is both were maladies or both were qualities of a state of being -- what one being greater than other would have to with whether either should the a thing we attempt to have less of, or that we attempt to mitigate the impact of it existing if we can't have less of it, remains unspecified.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Gun Fatalities: Public Safety or Mental Health Issue?"

False dilemma fallacy.

The solution can be found both with implementing sound public safety policy that comports with Second Amendment jurisprudence and a comprehensive mental healthcare policy.

And the mental health part of the solution would be preventative, not punitive; no 'database,' no personal, private information would be 'released' to any government.

Instead the focus would be on early detection and treatment of mental health issues before one becomes so ill he seeks to do harm to himself or others.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Suicide prevention is the least emphasized aspect of gun violence prevention, but it's impossible to commit to bringing down gun violence statistics without addressing the problem of suicide.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can object to studying the problem of gun suicide rates. Too often these victims are vets, and the debt we owe them requires that we take the issue seriously.

The CDC is prevented from tackling this issue because the gun industry fears that they will recommend a reduction in our gun intake. A gunectomy. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. No one was that thrilled with their preliminary study, which had surprises for everyone.

 

[Pogo]

Isn't this an echo of this thread? Are they not the same thing?

No. One is asking if it is a mental health issue the other is on registration. It may have wandered that direction but this topic can easily stand in its own thread.

While this one introduces the mental health issue --- they both go to the same place.

In this one, the two posters above astutely note the flaw in the premise: "whether public safety or mental health is the greater problem" is an absurdity. Moreover its implication is that "mental health" is the one and only dynamic at work is irrationally exclusive.

 

[FA_Q2]

Suicide prevention is the least emphasized aspect of gun violence prevention, but it's impossible to commit to bringing down gun violence statistics without addressing the problem of suicide.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can object to studying the problem of gun suicide rates. Too often these victims are vets, and the debt we owe them requires that we take the issue seriously.

The CDC is prevented from tackling this issue because the gun industry fears that they will recommend a reduction in our gun intake. A gunectomy. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. No one was that thrilled with their preliminary study, which had surprises for everyone.

That is one of the core problems.

At no time should we ever be barring funds from research on an entire subject. That reeks of cronyism. No matter how much I support gun rights and fight restricting those rights I would never advocate avoiding hard data. The restrictions on those studies should be removed.

IMHO, those numbers will HELP my position, not hinder it.

 

[320 Years of History]

That is one of the core problems.

At no time should we ever be barring funds from research on an entire subject. That reeks of cronyism. No matter how much I support gun rights and fight restricting those rights I would never advocate avoiding hard data. The restrictions on those studies should be removed.

IMHO, those numbers will HELP my position, not hinder it.

Well, they might. That remains to be seen. Whatever any such study will reveal, we'd certainly be in a better position for determining what course(s) of action makes the most sense, are implementable, and will have the "biggest bang for the buck," be that "buck" a reduction in our ability to bear arms or some other course of action.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Suicide prevention is the least emphasized aspect of gun violence prevention, but it's impossible to commit to bringing down gun violence statistics without addressing the problem of suicide.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can object to studying the problem of gun suicide rates. Too often these victims are vets, and the debt we owe them requires that we take the issue seriously.

The CDC is prevented from tackling this issue because the gun industry fears that they will recommend a reduction in our gun intake. A gunectomy. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. No one was that thrilled with their preliminary study, which had surprises for everyone.

That is one of the core problems.

At no time should we ever be barring funds from research on an entire subject. That reeks of cronyism. No matter how much I support gun rights and fight restricting those rights I would never advocate avoiding hard data. The restrictions on those studies should be removed.

IMHO, those numbers will HELP my position, not hinder it.

I don't know what those numbers will be, and I'm not sure what your position is.

I believe that the complications which cloud the issue of preventing gun violence are a smokescreen. Rights and restrictions are not incompatible. You either look at the attempts to deal with this issue as an attempt to prevent unnecessary death or a covert attempt to subvert gun rights.

 

[FA_Q2]

That is one of the core problems.

At no time should we ever be barring funds from research on an entire subject. That reeks of cronyism. No matter how much I support gun rights and fight restricting those rights I would never advocate avoiding hard data. The restrictions on those studies should be removed.

IMHO, those numbers will HELP my position, not hinder it.

Well, they might. That remains to be seen. Whatever any such study will reveal, we'd certainly be in a better position for determining what course(s) of action makes the most sense, are implementable, and will have the "biggest bang for the buck," be that "buck" a reduction in our ability to bear arms or some other course of action.

I have always supported second amendment rights and do not agree with almost any gun control measures beyond the restrictions that we currently have. I have looked extensively at numbers from other nations and find that gun control is largely ineffective at curbing actual homicides. Violence and crime have deeper causes than the availability of the tool used.

In any case, there is no instance where information is a bad thing for policy. The very idea of recoiling from studying an issue is asinine in the extreme.

 

[FA_Q2]

Suicide prevention is the least emphasized aspect of gun violence prevention, but it's impossible to commit to bringing down gun violence statistics without addressing the problem of suicide.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can object to studying the problem of gun suicide rates. Too often these victims are vets, and the debt we owe them requires that we take the issue seriously.

The CDC is prevented from tackling this issue because the gun industry fears that they will recommend a reduction in our gun intake. A gunectomy. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. No one was that thrilled with their preliminary study, which had surprises for everyone.

That is one of the core problems.

At no time should we ever be barring funds from research on an entire subject. That reeks of cronyism. No matter how much I support gun rights and fight restricting those rights I would never advocate avoiding hard data. The restrictions on those studies should be removed.

IMHO, those numbers will HELP my position, not hinder it.

I don't know what those numbers will be, and I'm not sure what your position is.

I believe that the complications which cloud the issue of preventing gun violence are a smokescreen. Rights and restrictions are not incompatible. You either look at the attempts to deal with this issue as an attempt to prevent unnecessary death or a covert attempt to subvert gun rights.

The thing is that there are a lot of restrictions already. The core of our problem is not in the tools available but in our culture and society.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Suicide prevention is the least emphasized aspect of gun violence prevention, but it's impossible to commit to bringing down gun violence statistics without addressing the problem of suicide.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can object to studying the problem of gun suicide rates. Too often these victims are vets, and the debt we owe them requires that we take the issue seriously.

The CDC is prevented from tackling this issue because the gun industry fears that they will recommend a reduction in our gun intake. A gunectomy. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. No one was that thrilled with their preliminary study, which had surprises for everyone.

That is one of the core problems.

At no time should we ever be barring funds from research on an entire subject. That reeks of cronyism. No matter how much I support gun rights and fight restricting those rights I would never advocate avoiding hard data. The restrictions on those studies should be removed.

IMHO, those numbers will HELP my position, not hinder it.

I don't know what those numbers will be, and I'm not sure what your position is.

I believe that the complications which cloud the issue of preventing gun violence are a smokescreen. Rights and restrictions are not incompatible. You either look at the attempts to deal with this issue as an attempt to prevent unnecessary death or a covert attempt to subvert gun rights.

The thing is that there are a lot of restrictions already. The core of our problem is not in the tools available but in our culture and society.

The core of our problem is death. Death is the problem, not guns. It's a simple matter, really. We must commit as a nation to bringing those numbers down.

But we can't. And why? Because anytime anyone mentions anything pertaining to reducing gun violence deaths and injuries it is seen as an assault on gun rights. That's the real problem. The problem that makes this issue a joke.

Are there people who dream of a gun-free America? Sure. There are all kinds of extremists out there. Such opinions, just as with the extremists on the pro-gun side, are perfectly fine, as long as they are balanced by more rational perspectives.

1- The constitution protects gun rights. It's done a bang-up job so far. What is the so-called "second amendment" crowd so afraid of?

2- The constitution does not prohibit gun restrictions. That too has been proven over and over again by SC rulings.

3- The gun restrictions we have in place are ineffective. Personally I think they're pointless, but that doesn't mean they're the great burden and risk that the absolutists try to paint them as.

People who stand in the way of the CDC and gun manufacturers who want to market "smart guns" or other technologies designed to reduce gun violence rates have blood on their hands. They claim it is in defense of a principle, but it is not. We can't tackle the problem of gun violence until we can all commit to addressing the real problem, not these gun lobby-created smokescreens.

 

[TNHarley]

Nothing you can do stop suicide. Gun is easy and quick. Let them people die the way they want.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Nothing you can do stop suicide. Gun is easy and quick. Let them people die the way they want.

There's nothing YOU can do to prevent suicide. Maybe there are people who are smarter than you? Maybe there are people more qualified to offer an opinion about suicide prevention than you? Maybe there are people who don't have a depraved indifference to human life and who should have the freedom to explore techniques that would reduce suicide rates?

 

[TNHarley]

Nothing you can do stop suicide. Gun is easy and quick. Let them people die the way they want.

There's nothing YOU can do to prevent suicide. Maybe there are people who are smarter than you? Maybe there are people more qualified to offer an opinion about suicide prevention than you? Maybe there are people who don't have a depraved indifference to human life and who should have the freedom to explore techniques that would reduce suicide rates?

If someone wants to kill themselves, they do it. They don't talk about it, they just do it. If it wasn't with a gun, it would be some other way. A gun is just easy and painless. If someone wants to kill themselves, who am I to stop it?
No need to falsely judge me.
Besides, its population control. Its inevitable. lol

 

[FA_Q2]

Suicide prevention is the least emphasized aspect of gun violence prevention, but it's impossible to commit to bringing down gun violence statistics without addressing the problem of suicide.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can object to studying the problem of gun suicide rates. Too often these victims are vets, and the debt we owe them requires that we take the issue seriously.

The CDC is prevented from tackling this issue because the gun industry fears that they will recommend a reduction in our gun intake. A gunectomy. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. No one was that thrilled with their preliminary study, which had surprises for everyone.

That is one of the core problems.

At no time should we ever be barring funds from research on an entire subject. That reeks of cronyism. No matter how much I support gun rights and fight restricting those rights I would never advocate avoiding hard data. The restrictions on those studies should be removed.

IMHO, those numbers will HELP my position, not hinder it.

I don't know what those numbers will be, and I'm not sure what your position is.

I believe that the complications which cloud the issue of preventing gun violence are a smokescreen. Rights and restrictions are not incompatible. You either look at the attempts to deal with this issue as an attempt to prevent unnecessary death or a covert attempt to subvert gun rights.

The thing is that there are a lot of restrictions already. The core of our problem is not in the tools available but in our culture and society.

The core of our problem is death. Death is the problem, not guns. It's a simple matter, really. We must commit as a nation to bringing those numbers down.

But we can't. And why? Because anytime anyone mentions anything pertaining to reducing gun violence deaths and injuries it is seen as an assault on gun rights. That's the real problem. The problem that makes this issue a joke.

I disagree. The problem is that every time the issue is talked about the only ‘solutions’ that anyone talks about is gun control and those are not solutions at all. You are not going to reduce death with more gun control. We already have gun control – what we have unchecked is a cultural problem and a gang problem.

When the entire political discourse centers around a non-solution you are not going to get anywhere.

Are there people who dream of a gun-free America? Sure. There are all kinds of extremists out there. Such opinions, just as with the extremists on the pro-gun side, are perfectly fine, as long as they are balanced by more rational perspectives.

1- The constitution protects gun rights. It's done a bang-up job so far. What is the so-called "second amendment" crowd so afraid of?

I can’t tell you what they are ‘afraid’ of or if they are afraid at all. All I can tell you is why I do not support any further gun control and that is because it does not have any real gains.

2- The constitution does not prohibit gun restrictions. That too has been proven over and over again by SC rulings.

And gun restrictions are extremely common. The question has never been no gun restrictions. The question is should we add FURTHER restrictions on a right. I say no.

3- The gun restrictions we have in place are ineffective. Personally I think they're pointless, but that doesn't mean they're the great burden and risk that the absolutists try to paint them as.

?

If they are pointless than there really is even less reason to do more things that are pointless. I would not go as far as stating they are pointless. What I find pointless is expanding them past the point we are already at.

People who stand in the way of the CDC and gun manufacturers who want to market "smart guns" or other technologies designed to reduce gun violence rates have blood on their hands. They claim it is in defense of a principle, but it is not. We can't tackle the problem of gun violence until we can all commit to addressing the real problem, not these gun lobby-created smokescreens.

No one is standing in the way of smart gun technology. What you are talking about is nothing more than a smoke screen. What people have stood in front of is mandating smart gun tech at this point. And for good reason.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Nothing you can do stop suicide. Gun is easy and quick. Let them people die the way they want.

There's nothing YOU can do to prevent suicide. Maybe there are people who are smarter than you? Maybe there are people more qualified to offer an opinion about suicide prevention than you? Maybe there are people who don't have a depraved indifference to human life and who should have the freedom to explore techniques that would reduce suicide rates?

If someone wants to kill themselves, they do it. They don't talk about it, they just do it. If it wasn't with a gun, it would be some other way. A gun is just easy and painless. If someone wants to kill themselves, who am I to stop it?
No need to falsely judge me.
Besides, its population control. Its inevitable. lol

I'm not falsely judging you, I'm just dismissing the opinion of someone who thinks they know more than the experts do. Someone who says, don't try!

At least you're honest that you don't care.