President says ‘epidemic of gun violence is tearing our communities apart’ after mass shootings in Philadelphia, Fort Worth, Baltimore and Chicago
President says ‘epidemic of gun violence is tearing our communities apart’ after mass shootings in Philadelphia, Fort Worth, Baltimore and Chicago
What’s important isn’t up to you to decide. A gun death is a gun death. They ALL count.
I think the main reason that some people are against counting suicides and accidental deaths is because it puts the lie to the narrative of the responsible gun owner.
Every time someone shoots themself in the head, or a toddler shoots a sibling, it’s because of an irresponsible gun owner. Usually an irresponsible gun owner that considered themself to be a responsible gun owner.
And every gun owner considers themself to be a responsible gun owner.
Everyone is a responsible gun owner until they aren’t. It’s all anecdotal. Just like how every time there’s a news story about a person that went psycho and murdered their family- there’s always an interview with a neighbor that says they were the most mellow person they ever knew.
ALL gun owners think they’re the responsible one, and the bad one are irresponsible. It’s how they’re able to rationalize the ideology that guns are good.
Personally, as someone who thinks guns can be dangerous to everyone in anyone’s hands (even the most experienced and safe can have a heart attack or find themselves in some other situation where being safe with their gun might suddenly be lower on the priority list than others around you might like it to be), I don’t like including suicides in that stat because it makes it easier to disqualify.
It’s just the way our minds work. If one has a position they believe in and some conflicting information comes up, unless they want to believe otherwise, they’ll latch on to any angle they can to disqualify it.
Including suicides makes the stat very easy to disqualify. They can be painful but they aren’t scary and don’t seem random when they aren’t close to home, plus that whole line of thought that they’d just find another way if they didn’t have guns.
Though, also personally, I don’t see why accidental gun deaths should be disqualified. If anything, they are worse than deliberate murders and assaults, because that “find another way” argument applies to deliberate attacks but doesn’t to accidental shootings. Accidental shootings are 100% “the only reason anyone died here was because there was a gun present”.
I don’t like preemptively weakening my position based on what I expect unreasonable people to do. If someone wants to talk about how they think suicides don’t count, I’ll be happy to have a conversation about why they think someone who kills themself with a gun is a responsible gun owner.
No, not for the gun control argument they don’t.
If someone wants to kill themselves there are dozens of ways to do it. Using a gun is a preference in that case, not a cause.
There’s a big difference there. The death happens regardless. The gun death argument hinges on avoidable deaths. Suicides aren’t avoidable in the same way as gang bangers shooting each other in the streets
My dogs are howling like they heard something. Funny, I didn’t hear anything.
Just because you want to take guns away from black people doesn’t mean you need to attack me
It’s refreshing to see someone admit that when they say “gang bangers shooting each other in the streets” they mean “all black people” like you just did.
That’s what you said. Your dog whistle hiding as a dog whistle
If you want to know what I’m talking about, it’s the illegal drug trade. You want gun violence to go down? Legalize drugs.
Bam, tens of thousands of lives saved from gun violence over night
Everyone knows what you were talking about in the first place. This sort of childish “say something racist and then call anyone who notices a racist for noticing” shit is why I’m so glad that I left reddit. Hopefully it won’t flourish here.