LogFAQs > #881926543

JamieTheWhite posted...

It's a semi-automatic man. It may be a little overkill. Semi-automatics are war machines.

Actually, full-auto are war machines. Semi is a broad-range weapon which excels in most regards, even hunting. And keep in mind that handguns are also used in warfare.

Doctor Foxx posted...

Zeus posted...

Guns don't make you more likely to commit suicide. That's a fucking ridiculous claim.

It's not at all. It has been studied. Areas with higher rates of gun ownership also have higher suicide rates. Having a readily available method to kill yourself with no opportunity for outside intervention (like with overdose) means more suicide. Access to a gun greatly increases the chance a person may commit suicide.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/guns-suicide/

A 2008 study by Miller and David Hemenway, HICRC director and author of the book Private Guns, Public Health, found that rates of firearm suicides in states with the highest rates of gun ownership are 3.7 times higher for men and 7.9 times higher for women, compared with states with the lowest gun ownership, though the rates of non-firearm suicides are about the same. A gun in the home raises the suicide risk for everyone: gun owner, spouse and children alike.

That's a correlation not a causation argument, and it's clearly being used for propaganda. More importantly, that argument is doubly fallacious considering that it doesn't seem to examine whether they already owned the gun or decided to go out and buy a gun to kill themselves. That's not even touching on the fact that gun ownership is generally highly concentrated so the total ownership for the state isn't a meaningful statistic.

The idea that the authors are purporting -- that somebody sees a gun and thinks, "Oh, gee, that's a nice gun, I'm going to blow my brains out!" -- is completely wrong.
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