this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It could be that the increase in gun related murders may be a factor in motivating people to purchase guns for protection. And the increase in ownership may also be a reflection of the number of people who purchased guns for a planned suicide, as evidenced by the rise in that number too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

While I'm sure that's a small part of it, studies have already shown than owning a gun increases your risk for suicide, and the risk of homicide.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/04/handguns-homicide-risk.html

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html

Guns are a catalyst for disaster. If you're suicidal, a gun makes it a lot easier to commit suicide, and therefore a lot more likely that you'll do it. If you're a violent person, a gun being nearby makes it more likely that your violent actions will be lethal.

If it was simply and only [gun murder rise] -> [rise in gun sales for protection], that alone wouldn't explain why gun deaths by suicide also rise. The explanation is that owning a gun makes death more likely. Which when you think about it, it is absolutely shocking that an item purpose built to kill makes death more likely.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Whelp, if you can't convince people to get a vaccination for a virus that killed millions, you won't convince people that giving up their guns will reduce their chance of getting killed.

I think a lot of people are convinced that there would be less crime overall if more people had guns and cc permits. But I bet if some wealthy philanthropist set up a foundation to subsidize affordable guns and ammo for low income families and immigrants there would probably be a lot more political will to regulate firearms.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is a rare and rational take. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The issue still starts with people using guns to take lives (as this is the point of guns), so inevitably more guns will mean more deaths by guns. The correlation sort of implies a causality in any case. If you want to kill someone and you have access to a gun or a knife, you will use the gun.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you want to kill someone and you have access to a gun or a knife, you will use the gun.

And in doing so, you'll be able to kill a lot more people. A gun will almost always be able to kill more people than a knife.