Reply #16: A counterpoint.

[TheWraith]

"Many others here have taken a less strident and more balanced position and admitted that much more needs to be done to make sure that there is better education and voluntary enforement of gun safety generally."

I doubt there's anyone here who disagrees with more gun safety. But that's a teaching thing, not a law thing. Seatbelt laws didn't make everyone buckle up and still don't. There's nothing contradictory about saying that people should be entitled to have guns if they want, and also saying they need to be careful with them. I'm in favor of everyone who wants one being able to have a car, but it's illogical to then assume that I'm somehow in favor of reckless driving.

"Statistics are not a good place for you to go because statistics for other industrial countries, including countries with large gun owning populations, like Switzerland and Canada show a much lower rate of homicide with guns."

And Switzerland and Canada both have governments that are serious about combating poverty, which results in starving the gangs, and they don't have the massively lucrative level of drug trading that we do. The vast majority of US homicides involving a gun are by career offenders with illegal guns, engaging in fights with other career offenders. None of which has anything to do with legal guns, as your own point shows: both countries have lots and lots of guns, Switzerland nearly as many as we do, Canada a little down the list.

"But the most troubling statistic, IMHO, is the very high rate of suicide by use of gun. If you compare the statistics between the US and Switzerland (as you know universal male service in their reserves requires virtually a gun in every household, so they are the only European country that has gun ownership that is similar to the US) you will find that there is very little illegal use of firearms but that the rate of suicide in Switzerland and the US remain astronomically high compared to other countries where guns are not accessible."

A fact which is deceptive, since there are many countries like Japan and Belgium which have almost no guns, but still have a far higher suicide rate than ours. There has never been any scientific evidence to link suicide rates to firearms. Obviously in countries which have plenty of guns, those guns are going to be a preferred method of suicide, since done right they're fast and painless with little chance of botching it.

When you actually examine the numbers, the US is quite low on the list when it comes to suicide rate. 11 per 100,000, annually. Compare that to Japan with 24, or Belgium with 18. France at 17, Scotland at 16. Suicide rate, like crime rate, is far too complicated to easily blame it on one thing, let alone guns.

"The reality is that from a clear statistical point that while either possibility is extremely remote there is a much greater chance that the random gun owner will take his own life in a moment of temporary dispair than in defending themselves in a fatal attack."

Not accurate in the least. There's about 17,000 suicides each year with guns in the US, or about one for every 18,000 people. In contrast there's an estimated 2.5 million defensive uses of a gun per year, or one for about every 123 people.

"countries where gun control has resulted in zero homicides during the years I lived there, providing the freedom to go anywhere in the country without ever even thinking about personal safety, a very special freedom that no American experiences here."

On the contrary, many of us experience that every day. Hell, I've walked around inner city Pittsburgh at 1 AM without worrying. That comes from the knowledge that if you separate out people engaging in the illegal drug trade into their own category, the homicide rate in the US drops like a stone. Despite the play they get in the media, those instances of people shooting up their workplace or killing their family are, statistically speaking, very rare.