Senate Gun Control

Then you should know that "drugs" are nearly always prescribed to be used in tandem with therapy. Literally nobody in the psychiatric field believes that drugs are a cure-all for anything... their purpose is to make therapy more productive and effective. You say "We don't understand how they work," and you're sort of right... YOU and others who are inexperienced in the field don't know how they work. Those in the field do. Stick to what you actually know, instead of making ignorant (and inaccurate) generalizations.

 

This thread has become disgusting.

 

The problem is insurance covers the drugs but not the therapy so the patient winds up suffering. Or you only get a very limited amount of sessions with the therapy.

I am sticking to what I know. I have witnessed it. I have colleagues who have witnessed it. I have instructors that witnessed it.

Because it is no longer a thread of blind obedience and agreement? Sorry you have to listen to other viewpoints than your own!

 

As an aside, Democrats are on the Senate floor now debating gun control in the new appropriations bill.

It's on c-span.

 

No. Because in the wake of a mass shooting, people here are just bickering and trying to insult one another.

 

@Scapro Tyler, your comments about the treatment of mental illness have nothing to do with the uncontroversial fact that the sheer volume of guns in the U.S. contributes heavily to the suicide rate and is the direct cause of a public health problem that could easily be mitigated by lowering the prevalence of guns.

If you got rid of all guns, would you get rid of all suicides? No. You would force suicidal people to resort to different methods for committing suicide, and those methods would be less successful than guns in the aggregate.

An unsuccessful suicide attempt creates an opportunity for intervention that doesn't exist when someone has blown off their own head.

 

No. Just stop.

The gun is the tool. Suicide has nothing to do with guns. The fact that people don't have a gun doesn't mean they are less likely to commit suicide. Will some lives be saved? Sure. But I doubt it would be a huge number.

 

We agree that half of all successful suicide attempts are gun suicides.

And we agree that if people were forced to resort to a less successful suicide method then "lives will be saved."

You "doubt" that it would be a "huge number"

What's your doubt based on and what do you think the number would be?

Remember: 20,000 successful gun suicides annually.

 

This really wasn't hard to find.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/

Guns are the deadliest form of suicide.

From the parent article:

Many suicide attempts are made with little planning during a short-term crisis period. If highly lethal means are made less available to impulsive attempters and they substitute less lethal means, or temporarily postpone their attempt, the odds are increased that they will survive.

 

while i agree, it's nothing new to this thread. the thread was started in the wake of sandy hook, the day of the shooting i believe and the bickering starts on page one. there is such a divide between those who are desperately clinging to this notion that guns are tools that can be used for good and those who see the reality of the devastation they cause that any intellectually honest debate seems impossible.

 

This is still not the point.

Fine. Outlaw guns. Then lets say knives become the deadliest form of suicide. Over time more suicides will be done via knives. Do we outlaw all knives? Okay! We did that. Now we have hangings being the deadliest form of suicide. Let's go ahead and outlaw rope sales!

I am not disputing that guns are not a deadly form of suicide. I get it. What I don't think anyone here seems to even care about is that the gun is only the tool and other tools will take its place.

I think I fixed this up for you.

 

But you've been shown that other suicide tools don't work as well as guns. And you also seem to suggest that unless we can drive the successful suicide rate to zero, we shouldn't do anything at all.

 

It is not that they are not working as well. Believe me I have seen them work quite well.

Its that people don't look to them as their first option when they wish to commit suicide and really go through with it instead of a cry for help.

If we take away that first option (guns) I have no reason to believe that the people who wish to commit suicide will simply stop doing so. Instead they will go to the next available means.

 

While gun advocates are too stubborn, thick head, or just plain dumb to understand that there is a difference between an item who's soul purpose is to kill and a knife/rope/car/tea cup/etc the debate is pointless.

 

No one is arguing that guns are the only successful suicide tool, just that they are by far the best suicide tool. If people were forced to use a different tool that isn't as good as a gun, then they wouldn't be as successful at killing themselves, in the aggregate.

As you said: lives would be saved.

 

Exactly. It's why women attempt suicide more often than men but men commit suicide more than women. Men use guns far more often and they are the most efficient way to commit suicide.

It's I guess the one advantage of being socialized to care about looks more than health.

 

Many different tools are as good as a gun if used right.

You have zero evidence that people would not simply start using those different tools. Zero. None. Zilch. It doesn't exist.

Do you know what does exist? This chart shows the highest suicide rates around the world. The United States with their big bad evil guns are tied at # 50.

Countries that jumped out at me that are higher than the US and have very strict gun control: South Korea, Japan, France.

 

it only takes me 15-20 seconds to open a safe, rack a round in the chamber, and be ready to blow your own head off, in a completely impulsive manner.

If you think that is the same as taking some pills, waiting to drift off, all the time with the chance of discovery, you aren't going to get a reasonable debate here, because you are not being reasonable.

 

lol.... wikipedia.

 

At least a source this time. 2,000,000 concealed guns stop crime every year, according to a chart he/she pulled out his/her arse.

 

I literally just posted data that shows guns are the most efficient.

Would suicidal people use other means? Of course. Are those means as fatal? No.

Also you can't just use the WHO data without also noting that far more people in certain countries attempt suicide more often than others.

 

Scapro Tyler, you seem determined to persist in holding a false belief. It does help demonstrate why meaningful debate on this topic is difficult.

but, just for the sake of continuing the argument...

You and I both agree that if the prevalence of guns in the home were greatly reduced, "lives would be saved" when people attempting suicide were forced to resort to methods with a lower success rate than guns.

Further, you and I both agree that, if there are 20,000 gun suicides annually in the U.S., the number of lives saved by reducing gun prevalence would be greater than zero, but less than 20,000.

Given that, is there any particular number of lives saved from suicide that would convince you that it would be a good idea to reduce the prevalence of guns in the country?

 

you really don't see the difference?