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Guns make it far easier to kill, and more likely. That applies to both murder and suicide. That's why we're TRYING to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, wife abusers, etc.
If all weapons were equally deadly, guns wouldn't be an issue. The gun enthusiasts would just carry screwdrivers and pencils.
Not all killers with guns are mentally ill. It wouldn't surprise me for a second that nearly all murderers and mass shooters are not legally mental ill at all. All one needs to do is look at the criminal courts and find how many of these killers are actually exonerated because of a mentally ill or insanity defense. The answer is, not quite, but nearly zero.
However, presuming for a single instance that the OP contains a nugget of truth, mental illness may be a cause but guns are the means. Take away the means, and the murder rate would logically fall precipitously. BTW comparing knives or bows and arrows to semi-automatics is just plain sophistry and can not be taken seriously.
This is what is making the gun debate so problemmatic. The logic bolded above seems unquestionable , and yet it is not at all supported by evidence. Sure, I suppose you can show examples of murder rates having declined after gun legislation implementation, but you can also show examples of little if any effect on murder rates coupled with an increase in violent crime (Great Britain, Canada). Why? Because guns are not only involved in crime, they are also a deterrent to crime. You can show examples of countries that have tight controls on guns and relatively little violent crime (Belgium, France, Japan) and then other countries, or even US States, that have liberal gun laws with similar if not better violent crime rates (Switzerland, Finland, Vermont, Iowa, etc.). The fact is there is no real pattern of cause and effect that I know of that links gun control with a drop in murder rates, let alone violent crime. It seems socio-economic factors have a far greater relationship.
Last edited by stevo6; 07-05-2014 at 09:29 PM..
Reason: grammar
one of the big problems is how black-and-white our thinking has become. if you exaggerate the argument down to only two alternatives, guns or mental illness, you don't leave room for the much larger reasons for human violence: poverty, disrespect, a lack of sense of community, lack of education, etc, etc.
there are 30,000+ gun fatalities every year in the USA. but out of that number, there are only a handful of assault weapon incidents. yet, this is what the legislators and the media focus on. similarly, there are very few incidents involving a person with such severe mental illness that they should have been denied a firearm. yet that is what the pro-gun crowd focuses on. it ends up being sensationalist and deflective on both sides.
Take out suicides and gang violence and you are left with less than 3,000!Out of 3 million that's not bad!
Suicides are not a gun problem otherwise the Japanese would have nosuicides at all! gang violence is easily remedied...harsh punishments and the total loss of freedom forever. If they aren't on the street they cannot commit crimes.
If you want to further reduce violent crime, that's easy too...get rid of violent felons for good...they commit 80-90% of new crimes.
Now, when I say easy, what I mean is simple...it won't be easy getting support from all of the bleeding hearts.
It's like leaving a bunch of TNT lying around the country and complaining when explosions happen. Sane, sober-thinking people aren't gonna light any of the fuses, it's just that in any population there's gonna be someone who's not normal. More TNT just makes it more likely, the question is does that matter? How much gun-related death is acceptable? And be honest, there is a number, just like the way that shaving 10 mph off a speed limit would save lives but harm an economy and be an inconvenience (gotta emphasise that quite minor-sounding last one) - those deaths are deemed acceptable, clearly. So what are the benefits of guns? Security? I'd possibly rank security above convenience, if indeed a gun does offer a trained owner security.
Intellectual laziness, and because it provides a political flashpoint issue to get parties to divide about an ancillary issue and not talk about the primary variables involved. Sort of like its easier to blame an inanimate object rather than the conditions / behaviors of the people involved because a vast majority of people do not want to look inward and would rather place blame.
The problem is who gets to make the call on what is or is not a legitimate mental health diagnoses that should limit your constitutional rights. Immediately you should be concerned as that is potentially a very slippery slope. Do we want the government making that list? I know i don't. they can barely manage the simplest of things and i can see people wrongly placed on the list and never being able to get off. The there is the issue of using placement as a threat to extract a specific behavior or action. The other half of the equation is what classifies you to be on the list? Is schizophrenia a qualifying condition? What about if its well under control with medications? Is a schizophrenia diagnosis a subjective or objective diagnosis? I don't know the answer, but I think it is not something where you take a blood sample and it is either there or it is not. If that Isn't possible then there is a gray area and then what do we do? Is depression a viable reason to take away someones rights? Can the decision be changed if your condition improves? The who and what are super important as we are talking about infringing on a founding right, not simply banning you from drinking beer as an example. It is a big deal to deny any American their birth rights, so we have to be 100% sure and 100% positive that our system of defining mental illness and taking away the ability to legally possess weapons is accurate and fair. This is not something that we historically are very good at.
We give kids mind bending drugs ands wonder why we have mind bending results. Ever mass shooting in out country for the last few decades has been done by somebody on Ritalin or a Ritalin derivative. There is something needing a government study.
I would like to see the proof you have of this. I am a psychologist. Drugs used to treat mental illness are there for a reason. There are used to treat the behavioral symptoms of mental illness. They serve a very important purpose. Even if your claim about people who commit mass shootings being on Ritalin were true (which it isn't), that doesn't mean the Ritalin CAUSED the person to commit such an act. Correlation is not causation.
The reason people aren't up in arms about knives is that most of those kids survived. Compare that to Newtown. If for some reason I'm stuck with the unfortunate choice of being shot or stabbed, I'll take stabbed every time. There are prisoners who have been shanked dozens of times and still lived. Few people get shot dozens of times and live. Bullets are a very efficient way to kill, after all.
Pumping weapons and ammo into a society of people who are largely undereducated and marginalized is criminally stupid.
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