CDZ Guns and Suicide, why are they used to promote gun control?

It doesn't make sense to use suicide rates as a basis for reducing anything but suicide rates. I mean really, if one is of a mind to kill oneself, is one really thinking, "I'm gonna kill myself, but only if I can do it by gunshot."? I'm sure there are some folks who felt that way prior to killing themselves, but it's hard for me to imagine that is how/what a lot of suicide victims thought of the matter.
 
No, your stats proved that guns are FAR AND AWAY the most common and successful tool used in American suicides. (That's the part you deleted with the ellipses)
Thanks for the backpedal. That's what I was looking for you to do.
Guns make suicide more successful, and more tempting. This has been proven across the board. Pills don't work, guns do, in the vast majority of cases.


Blathering about the overall suicide rate is comparing apples to Volkswagens.
 
LMAO, how on earth can you claim to know what 4 dead people would think about suicide and its relationship to the availability of guns? ....
Because all committed suicide without the need of a gun. Obviously a point you are either ignorant of or are desperately trying to avoid discussing. All they needed was a necktie, a scarf, "pills" aka drugs or a gas oven. Bridges, cars, water and a host of other means are available for people bent on suicide to end their lives. If LWers were really concerned about saving the 42,000+ Americans who successfully commit suicide each year, they'd be focusing on mental health care, not banning guns.

...None of your stats do anything to address the issue at hand....
On the contrary. They prove you are wrong in your assertion that without guns there's be a lot less suicides.

No, your stats proved that guns are FAR AND AWAY the most common and successful tool used in American suicides. (That's the part you deleted with the ellipses)


No...the countries listed show that guns are not the issue in suicide since almost all of those countries have extreme gun control...more than the United States, and they have higher suicide completion rates...showing that guns are not the issue in successful suicide and do not increase the suicide rate.......
Agreed, but no many anti-gun fanatics accept that truism. They want to believe banning guns will stop suicide, prevent gang violence and cure both domestic abuse and mental illness.
 
Again, this is off-topic, and incredibly stupid. No part of the inclusion of suicide stats in relation to gun violence is meant to be anti-choice.

Right, well if you are for a right to die, then the inclusion of suicide stats should be inconsequential in making a case for gun control.
 
It doesn't make sense to use suicide rates as a basis for reducing anything but suicide rates. I mean really, if one is of a mind to kill oneself, is one really thinking, "I'm gonna kill myself, but only if I can do it by gunshot."? I'm sure there are some folks who felt that way prior to killing themselves, but it's hard for me to imagine that is how/what a lot of suicide victims thought of the matter.

I agree. They want to die and they will use whatever they might get their hands on to do it. They are desperate people who see no way out of their situations. To blame guns for their actions is ridiculous. Hanging is also a common way for someone to kill him or herself (mostly boys/men use hanging or guns/women will usually use less violent means, such as pills), but we don't blame the rope!
 
It doesn't make sense to use suicide rates as a basis for reducing anything but suicide rates. I mean really, if one is of a mind to kill oneself, is one really thinking, "I'm gonna kill myself, but only if I can do it by gunshot."? I'm sure there are some folks who felt that way prior to killing themselves, but it's hard for me to imagine that is how/what a lot of suicide victims thought of the matter.

I agree. They want to die and they will use whatever they might get their hands on to do it. They are desperate people who see no way out of their situations. To blame guns for their actions is ridiculous. Hanging is also a common way for someone to kill him or herself (mostly boys/men use hanging or guns/women will usually use less violent means, such as pills), but we don't blame the rope!

Look, to the extent gun control arguments invoke gun suicides as a pillar in support of an assertion about why we should limit, track, prohibit, etc. one's access to firearms (the "positive" assertion), I think those arguments are specious/sophistic. That said, the "we don't blame the XYZ" (in your comment above, rope) basis for supporting the counter-argument (opposing "negative" assertion) -- we should not limit track, prohibit.... -- rebuttal doesn't hold water either and it doesn't because the usage profile for a gun is not the same as that of a rope.

I don't take issue with one's using a "replacement" technique to rebut the "positive" assertion, but to do so soundly, one must do so by contrasting the behavior and attitudes we have toward guns with that we have toward an object that has a similar usage profile, that is to say, with an object that is primarily a weapon, not an object that merely can be converted to use as a weapon or implement of death/injury, but that isn't generally used/purchased for that purpose.

Your "rope" counter focuses on the commonality of a rope's use for suicide and then equates the rope to the gun as the object used for ending life, and culminates by contrasts gun control advocates' attitude toward ropes with their attitude toward guns. The insufficiency of that line of rebutting the gun control "positive" argument appears when considering other objects that are also used commonly to commit suicide and that also have "normally" non-life ending use profiles as does rope. As you state, certain pills are commonly used to commit suicide. Do we track, limit or prohibit one's access to some of the types of pills one uses to commit suicide? Well, the answer is, of course, yes.

Now, had your "replacement" example used, say, bows and/or arrows, it'd have been logically valid. The problem with that line is, of course, that it's not logically sound. While the usage profile of an arrow (or bow and arrow, but the arrow alone is the relevant element in a suicide context) is similar to that of a gun; however, it lacks the usage convenience of a gun. Is there another object that has a usage profile even more similar to a gun than that of a bow and arrow (arrow)? None come readily to mind for me. How about for you?

Since there is no object I can identify that has a very similar, as compared with "similar," usage profile to that of a gun, one must, to maintain logical soundness, build one's counter-argument based upon the elements of the usage profile. What are the elements of any object's usage profile?
  1. Primary and "built for" uses of the object in question.
  2. Situation(s) in which the object might be used to accomplish that for which it was built.
  3. Operational manner in which the object be used in those situations. (what one must do to use the object)
  4. Outcomes of using the object in those situations.
You'll notice that "why" the object is used is not part of the usage profile. That's because why an object is used for "whatever" derives from the user's intent/goal(s), not the object itself. The "why" is part of the user profile, not the object's usage profile.​

Looking at the bow and arrow weapon system, one sees that its usage profile differs from that of guns in the operational sense. Analyzing a rope, one sees a usage profile that at best may have a tiny bit of commonality with a gun in terms of usage profile dimensions two and four. Hopefully, the structured analysis allows you to understand why I earlier said the "rope" counter-argument doesn't hold water.
 

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