Philosophical Vegan Forum

Guns are most dangerous to the owner (suicide) and to the owner's children. Mass shootings represent a small number of fatalities by comparison - terrible and tragic, but the biggest issue is probably still children killing themselves/each other. It's a good argument for not owning a gun, or for having a VERY good gun safe. That's a hard problem to solve.

School shootings are probably a lot easier to solve: just raise the gun ownership age. This shouldn't be complicated. The compromise that seems to be making progress effectively does this.

There's no good reason young people need to have their own guns.
Having a gun in a dangerous situation also makes you more likely to be shot-- by police or criminals. Most criminals are not murderers (teo, you know this) and don't want to kill you, they want your stuff (often out of desperation because they need drugs, or have no money to pay rent, etc.). If you try to defend yourself with a gun they can quickly become murderers when they see you as a threat to their lives.
Also, for women with guns specifically, IIRC, it's more likely that an unarmed criminal will take it from her and use it against her.

Even if a gun did work and made criminals run away, it's unlikely that you would save money money by buying the gun (a couple hundred dollars) vs. having your pocket money stolen a couple times in your life. Your better investment is a second wallet with very little money in it and fake cards etc. Also weighs a lot less to carry around.

I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to know how to use and own a military grade gun locked up somewhere in case of a civil war or something, but there's already a term for that: Being part of a well regulated militia (which is the only thing explicitly constitutionally guaranteed, not personal gun ownership).
If Jews had their own militia that met through their social groups it would probably have meant a lot more than scattered disorganized gun ownership. However, Avskum's argument that it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference is probably true; Germany had enough soldiers to throw at its oppressive goals. A few thousand more Nazi soldier deaths wouldn't have necessarily resulted in a statistically significant change to the number of Jews and others who were killed. It would have a small chance though.

All of that said, there's a good argument for dropping gun control from the liberal agenda, because it generates a lot of resistance and isn't something with the largest harm reduction footprint in policy terms. Environmental and other human rights policies would probably get a lot farther without riling up conservatives to vote against Democrats for fear their guns will be taken.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Guns are most dangerous to the owner (suicide) and to the owner's children.

You think guns cause suicide? I don't think so. Look at Japan, it has almost no guns yet it has a very high suicide rate.

brimstoneSalad wrote:The compromise that seems to be making progress effectively does this.

I am not sure what you mean. Mass shooters generally get their guns illegally.

teo123 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 8:35 am You think guns cause suicide? I don't think so. Look at Japan, it has almost no guns yet it has a very high suicide rate.

No, he's saying that guns make suicide easier (look up means reduction), not that they cause it. In the US at least many gun deaths are suicides.

teo123 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 8:35 am I am not sure what you mean. Mass shooters generally get their guns illegally.

No, most of the guns are obtained legally. In many states in the US, you just need to be 18 to be able to get a gun.

Red wrote:No, he's saying that guns make suicide easier (look up means reduction), not that they cause it. In the US at least many gun deaths are suicides.

I think means reduction works for cats who want to kill and eat their owners, but I fail to see how it would work for suicide. I can't imagine somebody thinking "I want to kill myself. Wait a second, it is illegal for me to own a gun. Therefore, I won't do suicide.". Why would suiciders be deterred by guns being illegal to own? It's not as if they will end up in jail after they do suicide, they will be dead then. And why would they even bother getting a gun? I can think on top of my head effective ways of doing suicide that are even easier than that. Jumping off of a building, for example. Or inserting a fork into an electrical socket (50 Volts is enough to kill a person, 220 Volts is way more than enough).

Red wrote:No, most of the guns are obtained legally. In many states in the US, you just need to be 18 to be able to get a gun.

I don't know now. I know that Andrija Drežnjak, the mass shooter who committed a mass shooting in social security office in Đakovo in July 2019, got his gun illegally.

teo123 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:46 am I think means reduction works for cats who want to kill and eat their owners, but I fail to see how it would work for suicide. I can't imagine somebody thinking "I want to kill myself. Wait a second, it is illegal for me to own a gun. Therefore, I won't do suicide.".
Why would suiciders be deterred by guns being illegal to own?

Did you look up what means reduction means?
You make it harder to commit suicide by making the method less accessible, suicide rates naturally decrease. People tend to commit suicide without thinking it through, so giving them a way out that doesn't require significant effort will just let the suicides happen. It's just the natural consequence of things. People are inherently kind of lazy, so when you make things harder to do, even just a little bit, they're less likely to do them.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matt ... ves-lives/

teo123 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:46 amAnd why would they even bother getting a gun? I can think on top of my head effective ways of doing suicide that are even easier than that. Jumping off of a building, for example. Or inserting a fork into an electrical socket (50 Volts is enough to kill a person, 220 Volts is way more than enough).

Not everyone has access to a rooftop (or at least a rooftop high enough to ensure death). Guns are usually, at least thought of being anyway, the fastest and more sure way to off yourself.

As for the electrical outlets, at least with more modern outlets, if you stick a fork in there it might hurt and it could land you in the ER, but it isn't guaranteed. They're made safer these days, probably because so many people tried to kill themselves this way.

That isn't to say you can't get seriously injured, but it isn't reliable. In fact, almost no suicide method is guaranteed to kill you, and it's also entirely possible that you'll suffer permanent damage in one way or the other instead.

teo123 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:46 am I don't know now. I know that Andrija Drežnjak, the mass shooter who committed a mass shooting in social security office in Đakovo in July 2019, got his gun illegally.

We're talking about the US, where the vast majority of shootings happen in the developed world. They are almost always obtained legally (there are exceptions of course, but it's frighteningly easy to get a gun in some places here).

If anyone is wondering my position on guns, I agree that they aren't as necessary for defense as people on the right say they are (and as brimstone talked about, it's potentially counterproductive), and there should be certain sensible regulations placed on them such as background checks and raising the minimum age, but I do believe that 95% of gun owners are sensible and responsible with their guns, but that 5% ruins it for everyone else.

I'm not sure how much I agree with the idea that the gun control issue should be completely dropped from the liberal agenda, I think taking on a more compromising approach to it would be better, where the Democrats just call for a higher minimum buying age and have effective background checks without going much beyond that (if I recall correctly, Hillary wanted these policies), and who knows, maybe they'll be able to compromise on other things to. But I do agree that it does in one way or the other distract and possibly inhibit progress on other serious issues that affect far more people, like climate change and wars and such. But this isn't really an issue I spend a lot of time thinking about anyway. Not because it isn't important, just that it isn't something I feel as though I could add to meaningfully.

Red wrote:People tend to commit suicide without thinking it through, so giving them a way out that doesn't require significant effort will just let the suicides happen.

And then how it is that Japan has almost no guns but it has a suicide rate significantly higher than the US?

teo123 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:05 am

Red wrote:People tend to commit suicide without thinking it through, so giving them a way out that doesn't require significant effort will just let the suicides happen.

And then how it is that Japan has almost no guns but it has a suicide rate significantly higher than the US?

The US has a higher suicide rate than Japan depending on how you look at the numbers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan

Red wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:17 am

teo123 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:05 am

Red wrote:People tend to commit suicide without thinking it through, so giving them a way out that doesn't require significant effort will just let the suicides happen.

And then how it is that Japan has almost no guns but it has a suicide rate significantly higher than the US?

The US has a higher suicide rate than Japan depending on how you look at the numbers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan

I must admit I am a bit shocked now. Japan was a synonym for a high-suicide country in my mind.
Still, there does not seem to be a strong correlation between guns and suicide. Plenty of countries have more suicide than the US, which has the most guns per capita. And the country in Europe with the highest suicide rate is Belgium, which has significantly fewer guns than Serbia or Croatia do.

@teo123, google "means reduction" and see how removing easy ways to off yourself will necessarily reduce suicide rates.

Even if the US were on the low end of suicides compared to other developed counties (which it generally isn't), removing a huge cause of what causes those suicides would reduce that number further.

Red wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 7:23 am @teo123, google "means reduction" and see how removing easy ways to off yourself will necessarily reduce suicide rates.

Even if the US were on the low end of suicides compared to other developed counties (which it generally isn't), removing a huge cause of what causes those suicides would reduce that number further.

And what about all those studies showing guns save way more lives than they take, even if you count suicide?