Bramblethorn
Sleep-deprived
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2012
- Posts
- 16,730
Where there is a will there is always a way. Yes that is a quote. You are blind if you think that gun-related suicides would not simply happen without a gun.
Yes, somebody without access to a gun could find other ways to kill themselves or others... but many don't. The simple fact that most mass murderers choose guns (where available) should be a hint that the psychological barriers against pulling the trigger are weaker than the barriers against most other forms of violence.
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/2/462
"In 1997, Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth (and nearly halved the number of gun-owning households). Using differences across states, we test whether the reduction in firearms availability affected homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise. "
You might as well outlaw people getting rope, or a belt, or lets even outlaw shoe laces.
All those things are very useful for other, important, non-lethal purposes, and have no reasonable substitute - unlike, say, semi-auto longarms. (I remember when the '97 gun ban came in here; professional hunters were contemptuous of the folk who claimed they needed a semi-auto weapon to shoot roos. If you can't drop an animal cleanly with one shot from a bolt-action rifle, you've got no business blasting away at it.)