Gun violence, when most Americans imagine it, is what happens when one person shoots another. We picture turf wars between gangs, abusive husbands turning on their wives, armed robbers punishing their victims, mass murderers opening fire on defenseless people. When we talk about how to reduce gun violence in America, what we overwhelmingly think about is preventing murder.
But murder is not the kind of gun violence that kills the most Americans.
Comments
How many people commit suicide with a military-style assault rifle? Very few, I submit. Then let's outlaw handguns and let people keep their rapid-fire rifles. (Note the ironic tone.)
As long as you have to carry liability insurance, lock it away where no one but the owner has access to it, allow no one but the owner to fire it, require the owner to report it lost or stolen within 1 hour of discovery that it is missing, have to register the transfer of ownership on a national level, and can take guns away from people who have shown themselves to be dangerous--sure.
just saying... but there are other very dangerous (from a cost and health standpoint) behaviors... should we force folks to carry insurance for that? of course, most of those behaviors are "lifestyle choices" for the liberals, so fat chance...... but we must try to take a constitutionally enumerated right away from decent (ie non-liberal) folk
This comment has been removed.
I think that it's funny that (mainly liberal-minded) academics in this country advocate for legalizing suicide on demand, mainly via lethal injection or pills, but then question question suicide via firearms.
Heck, the Commonwealth almost legalized the former during the past election, so I mean, just how bad could suicide be?
Of course the answer is that one kind of suicide can be controlled by the state and the "professionals" while the other can't and since the state thinks it knows best, they take the guns and decide (not yet, but eventually) when we can kill ourselves.
Death with dignity for those suffering from incurable physical illnesses is a far cry from the kind of suicide described in this article.
The article describes suicide by gun as an act of impulse by a person in extreme distress, a person whose life can be saved by giving them time--even a few more minutes--to reflect.
The Death with dignity laws are intended to allow those who are going to die soon anyway to avoid pain and suffering. These are not lives that can be saved, but lives that can be spared pain.
There is a difference between a split-second decision by a person momentarily overwhelmed by life's stresses and a carefully thought-out plan by someone dying of cancer.
How many Americans are killed each year by ILLEGAL ALIENS? Can we all agreed, that for the good of the children, we should ROUND UP ILLEGALS, then DETAIN and DEPORT? Illegals kill more than 10,000 Americans every year... (oh, and, that pesky "shall not be infringed thingy still holds...")
I am annoyed, REALLY annoyed.
This was a GREAT article. But I look below and mostly what I see is debate that has nothing to do with what this author wrote.
Ya buncha MORONS, he wrote about SUICIDES, not taking anyone's guns away. Working on getting rid of one of the leading causes of gun deaths. Are you all stupid? Did you take dumb pills before commenting on here?
This is exactly the kind of thing gun owners like me and gun haters can work together on.
I am so irritated.
Are you annoyed? Irritated?