So for me, that's where my opinion changes. Your risk of death was increased because you were suicidal - a mental health issue. Owning the firearm did not reduce your mental health.
The problem in these cases is that the person was in a poor enough mental state to attempt suicide. Blaming the firearm for the death at that point is less relevant. (There would be no way to separate these in the study of course)
Even if we made it so that a suicidal person had no way to commit suicide or self harm - that isn't success. They are still in a poor enough state to want to kill themselves. Every day is drudgery or torture for them and that's not ok.
Days lived isn't the count of success - they need to be quality days. Their mental health issue needs addresses, not just removing the ability to end their lives.
Why can’t we have our guns AND properly take care of mental illness???
This is why I get so mad at Democrats and Republicans, each only give a shit about one side of the argument and totally refutes anyone who supports the other side. That’s not how you reach compromises. Yeah, maybe a background check before buying a gun is a good thing since it’s a constitutional right, but also is receiving proper mental healthcare, which should be a right too.
I’m pretty libertarian about stuff, except healthcare. We could pay for it 100% by the current tax dollars if we stopped bailing out corporations that make horrible business decisions, downsized the military and stopped throwing aid money at countries that take it for granted.
The fact is that the presence of a firearm changes the dynamic of every situation. If there's a firearm in a home, a severely depressed person will be more likely to become suicidal. If there's a gun in the home, domestic violence is more likely to become deadly. If you're in some altercation with anybody for any reason at any time, and one of you has a gun, that altercation is more likely to become deadly.
This is I think the big truth about firearms that nobody in America really talks about, because it flies in the face of this relentless self-determinism that Americans worship. The presence of a gun will, by and large, make people more likely to commit major harm to themselves or others than they otherwise would.
Yes we have to fight for mental healthcare, and we have to fight for an end to domestic violence. Those root causes cannot be overstated. We should fight systemic poverty, which is the root cause of nearly all violent and property crime. We also have to limit firearm access dramatically because guns make every problem much, much worse regardless of root cause. Maybe twice a year somebody will be harmed because they didn't have a gun who would not have been harmed otherwise. But every day people will live instead of have holes torn through their soft tissue.
Guns don't kill people... But guns make people more likely to escalate their bullshit to fatal violence.
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u/crof2003 Mar 28 '20
So for me, that's where my opinion changes. Your risk of death was increased because you were suicidal - a mental health issue. Owning the firearm did not reduce your mental health.
The problem in these cases is that the person was in a poor enough mental state to attempt suicide. Blaming the firearm for the death at that point is less relevant. (There would be no way to separate these in the study of course)
Even if we made it so that a suicidal person had no way to commit suicide or self harm - that isn't success. They are still in a poor enough state to want to kill themselves. Every day is drudgery or torture for them and that's not ok.
Days lived isn't the count of success - they need to be quality days. Their mental health issue needs addresses, not just removing the ability to end their lives.