Gun Deaths To Pass Car Deaths By 2015

Firearms are set to pass the automobile as the instrument for American deaths.

Firearms are set to pass the automobile as the instrument for American deaths.

YahooNews (“Gun deaths set to outstrip car fatalities for first time in 2015“):

Deaths from firearms are set to outstrip car fatalities for the first time, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and reported by Bloomberg News.

The CDC estimates that auto-related deaths–long on the decline as more motorists wear seat-belts and face harsher penalties for drunk driving–will fall to 32,000 in 2015. Deaths from firearms, which include suicides and accidents, are estimated to rise to 33,000 over the same period.

Every day, 85 Americans are shot dead, about 53 of them in suicides. This figure is still lower than 1993’s peak in gun deaths (37,666), but has risen significantly since firearm deaths reached a low  in 2000 (28,393). The data goes back to 1979.

Meanwhile, USA Today, which looked at FBI figures, reports that 774 people were killed between 2006 and 2010 by a mass killer, defined as a person who kills four or more people in one incident. The figures show that mass killers strike on average once every two weeks. A third of the 156 mass killings did not involve firearms, but rather fire, knife or other weapon. Almost all of the mass killers in those years were men, and their average age was 32. The dozens of deaths caused by mass killers represented about 1 percent of all homicides between 2006 and 2010.

While a shocking statistic, it strikes me as unhelpful to include suicides in this discussion; it’s just a completely different animal than the murder of another. And it especially skews the discussion when suicides are 62 percent of gun fatalities. Presumably, it’s a tiny fraction, indeed, of automobile fatalities.

That said, 32 deaths a day from other than suicide is a strikingly high number. That’s 11,680 deaths a year, roughly half the number killed in car accidents. Considering how routinely most of us drive, that’s amazing enough without artificially inflating the numbers and confusing the debate.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. cd6 says:

    Looks like some more Nate Silver approved statistics, telling LIEbruls what they want to hear.

    Guess what, Obamabots. According to the 2nd Amendment and Jesus, real Americans always have the right to buy any gun, any time, any where, and if you don’t like it, you can go cry to Sandra Fluke.

    Your anti gun propaganda won’t work here. If you check the UNSKEWED gun death statistics, it shows that 100% of gun murders were legally defensible cases of true patriot Americans STANDING THEIR GROUND. Any other murders were the result of progressives INFLATING THE STATISTCS just like in FAST & FURIOUS to trick the public into supporting OBOWMA’s reckless gun grabbing.

    As a constitution loving brave internet commentor, I will now declare that I am basically the exact same thing as those guys in 300, and say if you wan’t my guns, COME AND TAKE THEM.

    Wooo…. posting the above got me worked up. I need a towel. God bless the USA

  2. 11B40 says:

    Greetings:

    So, is the Car debate over ???

  3. JKB says:

    Seems to me, you’d want to filter out gun deaths caused by lawful police action and deaths ruled justified due to self defense/defense of others by non-police as well.

  4. JKB says:

    Interesting, the gun deaths surpassing highway deaths seems to be a recurring theme with CDC.

    A quick Google bought up this from CDC predicting that the passage was projected for 2003. That’d be what, nearly a decade ago?

    During the 33-year period covered by this report, the total number of firearm deaths increased by 130%, from 16,720 in 1962 to 38,505 in 1994. If present trends continue, firearm-related injuries could become the leading cause of deaths attributed to injury by the year 2003, surpassing injuries due to motor vehicle crashes.

    And, oh look, the suicide rate among the elderly has risen. Might that be because we don’t offer a humane solution to those who’d rather not suffer a long debilitating death? My brother, though not elderly, planned suicide by gun but his illness took him fast once it got going.

  5. mattb says:

    Wow, that is stunning…

    Every day, 85 Americans are shot dead, about 53 of them in suicides.

    I wish there were a few more breakouts and clarifications. I’m interesting in the breakout of accidental shootings. Additionally, it would be helpful to see what percentage of the suicides were:

    1. licensed gun owner versus individuals using a family member or acquaintances weapon
    2. hand gun vs. long gun
    3. in how many cases was the gun purchased within ~48 hours of the suicide

    As a side note, the chart that accompanies the bloomberg article also demonstrates how much safer cars have become (go safety regulations!), as the overall projected number of gun deaths in 2015 is actually not all that much higher than the number of gun deaths in 1979.

  6. mattb says:

    BTW… anyone have any idea what safety reg went into action in the mid 2000’s that led to such a marked decrease in auto deaths? That seems to me to be the bigger story in this chart and when you start to look at the data.

  7. john personna says:

    From a public safety standpoint, the suicides matter.

    I heard yesterday that depression is about as common in gun owning and non gun families. The gun owners just have a quick way out.

    I thought about this yesterday as I flipped channels, and saw a young Judy Garland throw herself on the bed and say “I wish I was dead!”

    Figuratively of course, but still safer without a gun in the house.

  8. Eric the OTB Lurker says:

    Well, James, clearly the answer is that we need more guns. Just think how many more lives would be saved if someone is there with a gun to stop the guy with the gun from killing someone or committing suicide. Just think.

  9. The Q says:

    The solution to continued car accidents is simple; if we just armed our cars, the accident rate would vastly decrease. That idiot who just cut you off on the freeway will think twice if you could utilize a James Bond type surface to surface missile to blow that ahole off the road.

    We could usher in a whole new era of drivers using their turn signals, obeying the speed limit, being courteous and reducing road rage if other drivers knew that our hood mounted .35 mm cannon could render the offenders car into Swiss cheese.

    Thanks libtards for all the car accidents that will happen because we don’t arm our cars enough to stop all the carnage.

  10. john personna says:

    (The strongest statistic on the suicide thing is teen rates. The teens were never the gun purchasers, that was always an adult. And so their suicide rate should be independent of purchase decision. Sadly, they kill themselves at IIRC a 3-5 times higher rate in gun owning houses.)

  11. JKB says:

    Here is the CDC database site for 2010 injury data. You’ll have to choose your own options for a report, no permanent link to a particular selection seems available.

    As expected, Homicide-firearm is the leading cause of death for males 15-34, suicide-firearm is the leading cause for those over 35+ (M/F)

    In a tribute to the war on disease, injury/violence is now the leading cause of death in the US.

  12. JKB says:

    @JKB:

    Oops, I should have specified deaths due to injuries caused by violence

    For all deaths you get unintentional injury as the leading cause, homicide being #2 for those 15-24.

  13. Rafer Janders says:

    @john personna:

    Yes, I’ve had friends who’ve suffered from depression tell me that if they’d had a gun at certain points in their lives, they would have shot themselves. There are other suicide methods, of course, but most of them take longer/are more painful/harder to pull off etc. than death by gunshot, so having a gun in the house greatly increases the odds that a suicide attempt will succeed.

  14. john personna says:

    @mattb:

    Percentage of new cars with aribags hit 100% around 2000, which would mean fleet replacement would proceed in that decade.

  15. Tsar Nicholas says:

    You simply have to marvel at the headline and 1st graf dissonance of the partisan liberal Democrat media.

    Every day, 85 Americans are shot dead, about 53 of them in suicides. This figure is still lower than 1993′s peak in gun deaths (37,666), but has risen significantly since firearm deaths reached a low in 2000 (28,393). The data goes back to 1979.

    .

    Obviously the answer is to ban suicide. And to ban accidents. Glug, glug.

    And of course a headline of “Factoring out suicides gun deaths still are far lower than vehicle deaths,” or “Gun deaths down 18% from early-1990’s peak despite much larger population,” or something along those lines, would not have fit with the narrative nor the agenda. Back over to you, Diane.

    In any event, for obvious reasons, given the demographics of leftism and the ensuing demographics of the liberal media, along with the Democrat Party’s horrible demographics, it’s impossible to have anything resembling a rational discussion about these issues. C’est la vie. Which is unfortunate. There would be ways legislatively to help reduce accidental shootings but without infringing upon Constitutional realities and without engaging in overbearing regulations or mission creep. But it takes two to tango and the rabid anti-gun left is not a viable dance partner.

  16. JKB says:

    Interesting, if you look at all injuries over the whole population for 2010

    unintentional MV 18.4% – most common for the under 25 crowd
    unintentional poisoning 18% – big with the older crowd 25-64
    unintentional fall 14.2% – big with the elderly
    suicide firearm 10.6%
    homicide firearm 6.0% – only rising to the top 2 for the 15-24 crowd

  17. matt says:

    I highly doubt that somehow 8500 deaths is suddenly going to eclipse 33000 deaths when the 8500 number has been on a downswing for decades.

    This is pure bullshit and number manipulation.

    EDIT : OH I see you’re pulling the ol handgun inc bullshit where you add in suicides committed with a gun. Maybe we should outlaw suicides then?

    As someone that was a suicidal youth surrounded by guns my choice of fantasy was still hanging. I did make one token attempt at slitting my wrists but really that was a cry for help not a serious attempt (I did go down the arm and did passout but that’s it). My point being that suicidal people will find a way to commit suicide with or without guns. Removing guns isn’t going to suddenly stop people from killing themselves. Frankly I don’t have much of a problem with suicide or euthanasia. If life sucks so much you’d rather check out I’d rather you check out by yourself and not by taking a bunch of people with you.

  18. Geek, Esq. says:

    The gun gives a suicidal person an effective “off switch” in order to end their life. There are probably dozens if not hundreds of people every year who kill themselves because they had access to a gun that would not have otherwise done so.

  19. matt says:

    @Rafer Janders: They tell you that but sitting there with the gun loaded and ready to go is a totally different thing than fantasizing about it. They think it’s easier with a gun but in reality it isn’t true.

  20. mattb says:

    @john personna:

    Percentage of new cars with aribags hit 100% around 2000, which would mean fleet replacement would proceed in that decade.

    That makes sense as a major cause. Still that drop, starting in 2008, is pretty amazing.

    In fact, looking at the two lines, we see that Auto related fatalities have dropped by some 20K a year (from ~55K to 35K) since 1979! Again, regulation minded folks should be shouting those stats from the mountain top.

  21. john personna says:

    @this:

    What kind of person down-votes an uncomfortable truth?

  22. Rob in CT says:

    @mattb:

    Damn skippy. Two things that give me great pleasure, of late, are: 1) the falling violent crime rate; and 2) the drop in auto deaths. Both are falling like a rock. The levels are, at present, still too damned high, mind you, but the trend is beautiful.

    As for the suicide thing: I think that matters, matt. I agree it shouldn’t be treated exactly the same way as murder, but if (if!) we see a strong correlation between successful suicide attempts and gun availability, I think that suggests rather strongly that throwing up a roadblock or two would be helpful. Mainly, impressing upon gun owners the absolute necessity of securing your weapons

    The problem I’ve run into when having that discussion in the past is that you get the whole “but I want it for self defense and if I lock it up it’s no good for self defense.” Which is probably true, or at least seems plausible to me.

  23. Rob in CT says:

    Bah. Comment in moderation. I used reply, dummy that I am.

  24. stonetools says:

    Here’s a classic story showing the intersection between one stupid policy”,( stand your ground), another stupid policy (liberal CCW)and a third stupid policy (easy availabilty of handguns):

    Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law has been cited in hundreds of cases. People have used it to justify shooting, stabbing, killing and maiming would-be intruders, romantic competitors and rival gang members.

    And on Sunday, at a pizza joint in St. Petersburg, a man tried to use it as justification for shooting another customer who was yelling at workers because he wasn’t getting his order fast enough.

    LINK

    Fortunately, the shooter did not have a more lethal kind of handgun, so the victim survived.So in Florida, complaining about service at a fast food shop can get you shot. But hey, Second Amendment ! and Wolverines!

  25. The Q says:

    Hey Matt and JKB, other than getting totally fed up with your BS defense of the gun freaks, how do you square up with your arguments the fact that the number of households which owned guns has decreased from 1972 with over 50% having guns according to polls by Gallup, the GSS and the Census Bureau to about 33%.in 2011?

    What we have is wack job gun freaks who are buying MORE AND MORE OF THE GUNS YOU AHOLES. A decreasing number of American gun owners own two-thirds of the nation’s guns and as many as one-third of the guns on the planet — even though they account for less than 1% of the world’s population, according to a CNN analysis of gun ownership data.

    This continuing tripe of “there’s more guns the last 30 years and we have seen crime plummet” is belied by the facts that you moronic wingnuts c*(cksuck*rs fail to mention: there has been this murder rate decrease because the general population is LESS ARMED than 40 years ago

    What we do see (and the recent gun buying spree after Newtown proves it ) is that paranoid, ignorant redneck dumb shites are stockpiling these weapons in their “the gumbiint is gonna do to us what the Nazi’s did to the Jews” insanity.

    In short, we have had it with the snarky “define an assault weapon” or “cars kill people too, so lets ban them” arguments

    Shot guns, single bolt action rifles and small bore handguns are legal and most folks support their use for hunting and home protection.

    The rest should be banned and retail sales of all guns should be highly regulated. We do this if you want to buy dynamite, why not guns?

    And yes, I am so pissed that I hope Wayne LaPierre accidentally shots himself or his kids with his guns. Karma is a mofo.sometimes.

  26. michael reynolds says:

    @cd6:

    I just want to say that as a writer I found that to be pitch-perfect. Well done.

  27. matt says:

    @The Q: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

    Your rant is so wrong that you even got the percentage of households with a gun in it wrong (47% in 2011). It’s not worth my time to deal with your delusions.

  28. Eric the OTB Lurker says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    Obviously the answer is to ban suicide. And to ban accidents. Glug, glug.

    Your analogy is faulty: Those who are for gun regulation are not trying to regulate mass killing (although we would if we could), but to regulate guns–to prevent more killing. So, you don’t regulate accidents or suicides, you regulate driving.

    In your failed attempt at cleverness, you willfully avoided the one conclusion that supports the evidence but not your implied belief: that regulation actually works (e.g., reduction driving deaths).

  29. matt says:

    @stonetools: The key word is “tried”. People try to use all kinds of excuses and legal arguments to justify their actions.

    @Rob in CT: In response to that I send people to links such as this.
    http://www.overstock.com/Sports-Toys/SentrySafe-Home-Defense-Center-Gun-Safe/6145850/product.html
    or
    http://www.cabelas.com/product/Shooting/Gun-Storage/Gun-Safes%7C/pc/104792580/c/104730480/sc/104369580/Stack-On-Mini-Storage-Vault/708358.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fshooting-gun-storage-gun-safes%2F_%2FN-1100213%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_104369580%3FWTz_l%3DSBC%253BMMcat104792580%253Bcat104730480&WTz_l=SBC%3BMMcat104792580%3Bcat104730480%3Bcat104369580
    Or any number of gun safes that allow quick and silent retrieval of a weapon.

    Because lets be frank here you shouldn’t be grabbing and shooting a gun the moment you are awakened. The time it takes to open a gun safe will give you time to wake up and begin properly assessing the situation.

  30. wr says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: “along with the Democrat Party’s horrible demographics,”

    By which you mean the majority of the country.

  31. wr says:

    @matt: “As someone that was a suicidal youth surrounded by guns my choice of fantasy was still hanging. I did make one token attempt at slitting my wrists but really that was a cry for help not a serious attempt (I did go down the arm and did passout but that’s it).”

    Oh, I feel so much better about the idea of you freely acquiring weapons.

    This is almost as good as the “William S Burroughs said gun control was bad”.

  32. The Q says:

    Matt, go fuc,.k yourself…you’re entitled to be a delusional, misinformed idiot, but not to misstate facts:

    “The number of households owning guns has declined from almost 50% in 1973 to just over 32% in 2010, according to a 2011 study produced by The University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The number of gun owners has gone down almost 10% over the same period, the report found

    OK, another survey dipshite:

    Paul Waldman, in the final installment of his epic series about guns and the NRA (nickel summary: the gun lobby isn’t as influential as you think), provides us with a surprising chart. For the last 30 years, it turns out, gun ownership has dropped steadily. Today, only about 30% of households own a gun. Most of this is due to demographics. Apparently there was a big spurt in gun ownership in the generation born between 1920 and 1960, and then the spurt went away. Cohorts born in later years all own guns at substantially lower levels.

    Or how about this j-off:

    According to the Gallup polling household gun ownership peaked in 1977, when more than half (54 percent) of American households reported having any guns. By 2010, this number had dropped more than 15 percentage points to 38.3 percent of American households reporting having any guns in the home–the lowest level ever recorded by the Gallup poll. In 2010, fewer than a third of American households reported having a gun in the home.

    Whats the use in arguing with close-minded wingnut dolts who continually live in a make believe world of their own musings?

  33. matt says:

    @wr: yeah because once someone did something stupid they should hold that stigma forever and ever because people never ever change. Your mentality is a hindrance to the advancement of our species..

    I’m not even Christian and I’m totally down with their concept of forgiveness.

    @The Q: Oh gallup you mean this gallup pollster???

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx

    It’s pretty obvious at this point that you have no interest in a reality based discussion.

    WR and Ozark are classic examples of what is wrong with our country when it comes to discussing mental health issues. If someone dare admits that they might have or had a problem they will forever be labeled as being that problem. The modern day equivalent of the scarlet letter or the golden star.

    When someone serves their time and is allowed back into society I believe we shouldn’t continue to punish them for the rest of their life. Otherwise why did we allow them back into society in the first place?

  34. Rob in CT says:

    If someone dare admits that they might have or had a problem they will forever be labeled as being that problem

    A fair point.

    I admit it: I had the same thought wr expressed. I just kept it to myself.

  35. sam says:

    I think this story, ‘Stand your ground’ cited in shooting of whiny Little Caesars Pizza customer is perhaps a data point strongly in favor of the argument made in this article, The Freedom of an Armed Society:

    As N.R.A. president Wayne LaPierre expressed in a recent statement on the organization’s Web site, more guns equal more safety, by their account. A favorite gun rights saying is “an armed society is a polite society.” If we allow ever more people to be armed, at any time, in any place, this will provide a powerful deterrent to potential criminals. Or if more citizens were armed — like principals and teachers in the classroom, for example — they could halt senseless shootings ahead of time, or at least early on, and save society a lot of heartache and bloodshed.

    As ever more people are armed in public, however — even brandishing weapons on the street — this is no longer recognizable as a civil society. Freedom is vanished at that point.

    And yet, gun rights advocates famously maintain that individual gun ownership, even of high caliber weapons, is the defining mark of our freedom as such, and the ultimate guarantee of our enduring liberty…

    Hannah Arendt [In her book The Human Condition argues that ] guns pose a monumental challenge to freedom, and particular, the liberty that is the hallmark of any democracy worthy of the name — that is, freedom of speech. Guns do communicate, after all, but in a way that is contrary to free speech aspirations: for, guns chasten speech.

    This becomes clear if only you pry a little more deeply into the N.R.A.’s logic behind an armed society. An armed society is polite, by their thinking, precisely because guns would compel everyone to tamp down eccentric behavior, and refrain from actions that might seem threatening. The suggestion is that guns liberally interspersed throughout society would cause us all to walk gingerly — not make any sudden, unexpected moves — and watch what we say, how we act, whom we might offend.

    Prescient, no?

  36. Rob in CT says:

    Though I’ll also say this: not because I was thinking “matt’s crazy and will hurt other people.” I was thinking “well, I hope Matt doesn’t hurt himself.” We are, after all, talking about suicide.

    I had a half-brother who killed himself. He didn’t happen to use a firearm to do it. The George Washington Bridge sufficed. He was medicated. In fact, his doseage was increased shortly beforehand. Not that I actually know for sure that he was taking the meds. Nor do I know his stated reason(s) for his act, since the note he apparently left behind was never shown to our side of the family.

    No point to that last bit. Just oversharing.

  37. matt says:

    @Rob in CT: You and probably a lot of the lurkers here. I actually made my confession in an attempt to try to enlighten some people. I think everyone’s first instinct is to think that way but the important part is correcting yourself when you do.

    Till we can get past this we’re never going to have a good honest discussion on mental health and treatments.

    Thanks for sharing that Rob. I’m a perfectly happy person these days with a great passion for some things including hunting and shooting. I’ve come to grips with the reality that life sucks and then you die. I’ve just decided that I want to do a lot of fun stuff before the die part.

  38. grumpy realist says:

    @matt: And you know this how?

  39. grumpy realist says:

    Look, I wouldn’t mind if you crazy oh-mi-gawd-Obammer-is-gonna-steal-mah-GUN! crowd nitwits were to hole up with as many firearms and rounds of ammunition as you want.

    The problem is that a high percentage of you seem to want to use them against other people….

  40. JKB says:

    @The Q: Shot guns, single bolt action rifles and small bore handguns are legal and most folks support their use for hunting and home protection.

    Really? Police are confronted with 3 persons, one with a handgun, one with an AR-15 and one with a shotgun. Quick who do they shoot first? The one with the shotgun. Shotguns make big holes and don’t need good shot placement to be effective.

    Small bore handguns? You mean the ones like the .22 that can penetrate vests? So I can keep my FN five-seven which is .223 caliber? You know, not long ago every one was up in arms (oops, I guess that would be “up in anti-arms”) calling that pistol a “cop killer”.

    As I said in the other thread, if gun grabbers want to be taken seriously, they need to learn about their obsession.

  41. JKB says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Should you bother to return to reality, you would discover that most firearm injuries/deaths are one criminal shooting another criminal over criminal activity. Criminals generally support gun bans for law abiding citizens as it greatly reduces the risks associated with their trade of preying on helpless victims.

  42. matt says:

    @grumpy realist: If a high percentage used them against people we’d have several hundred thousand dead if not more. You’re just as crazy as the people you’re railing against.

  43. Just Me says:

    BTW… anyone have any idea what safety reg went into action in the mid 2000′s that led to such a marked decrease in auto deaths?

    I can think of two things.

    #1 there are fewer teenagers. Teenagers account for a high number of traffic accidents and fatalities. Fewer teenagers likely means fewer vehicle deaths-basically the aging of the population causes the lower deaths.

    #2 At the same time various graduated licensing for teens have come into popularity. There is some variation from state to state, but most involve requirements for driver’s ed, restrictions on when they can drive and who they can have in the care with them.

  44. 11B40 says:

    Greetings:

    Admittedly, I’m still enmeshed in the 20th Century, the early part some say, but didn’t the CDC used to be known as the Center for Disease Control or some such ??? And, if they’ve expanded their rice bowl, wouldn’t a name change to something like the Center for Disease and Death and Accident (and anything we don’t like) Control ???

    And then, they could put their gunnophobes to work running some numbers on guns casualties versus homosex (I know, I know, it’s been scientifically proven by a vote of many interested non-scientists that it’s not a disease) casualties. Now those would be some interesting numbers. And a cost comparison even more so. So, what do you say ???

  45. anjin-san says:

    So, what do you say ???

    I say you are an idiot.

  46. Rafer Janders says:

    @matt:

    yeah because once someone did something stupid they should hold that stigma forever and ever because people never ever change.

    Once? Of course not. But you’re still being stupid, up to this day.

  47. Rafer Janders says:

    You know, I’m going to retract my above comment and apologize to Matt. It was mean-spirited and stupid. I’m sorry I wrote it.

  48. grumpy realist says:

    @matt: Well, I used to live up in Upstate New York. We continually, EVERY YEAR had to deal with the nitwit “hunters” who thought that a) anything moving in the bushes, whether they knew what it was or not, was a deer, b) shooting in someone’s back yard was perfectly fine, and c) trespassing on people’s property and building a blind wherever they wanted to was their god-given right.

    Real hunters who obey the law and are respectful of what they carry are perfectly fine. They don’t do damage. It’s all the rest of the clowns we had running all over the place. Plus on top of it, frequently they were juiced up with multiple packs of beer, which certainly didn’t help their judgment. (Like that clown who drank 24 beers and then went and lit a fire in a mosque.)

    I guess “freedom” in the US means the right to be as stupid as possible…

    Look–with everything else out there that is dangerous we restrict it or make sure that people are trained and responsible before we turn them loose with it. Why should guns be different?

  49. matt says:

    @grumpy realist: Yeah I have to deal with nitwit drivers all the time. Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your perspective) for you the nitwit drivers are causing a shit ton more death then your nitwit hunters.

    I don’t have an issue with requiring training classes for FOID cards as long as the prices are reasonable. The only thing I worry about is nitwits raising the fee intentionally to restrict firearm ownership.

  50. mattb says:

    @grumpy realist:
    First… upstate NY shout out — which area?

    It’s all the rest of the clowns we had running all over the place. Plus on top of it, frequently they were juiced up with multiple packs of beer, which certainly didn’t help their judgment.

    This is somewhat true. Sadly, my experience is that a lot of these folks are EXACTLY the type that Michael Reynolds has been talking about. Weekend warriors from Westchester, NYC, and the Island (btw, I grew up on LI).

    My experience is that the local hunters, most of whom are in it for the food, are the real hunters you’re talking about. … Well except for that one or two good ol’ boys who spend most of their nights at the local dive bar.

    BTW, it also seems that part of the issue is the lack of law enforcement resources to go after the people who are clearly abusing things (and ignoring signs posted on property).

  51. mattb says:

    [off topic]

    @matt is totally right in saying…

    [Some reactions to his admission of attempting suicide represent] classic examples of what is wrong with our country when it comes to discussing mental health issues. If someone dare admits that they might have or had a problem they will forever be labeled as being that problem. The modern day equivalent of the scarlet letter or the golden star.

    It really highlights the entire stigma of mental illness. It’s ok to talk about, and it’s ok for other people to have in theory, but it’s also exceedingly dangerous to admit you’ve had problems with it in public.

    I’ve been slowly working my way through a grad program at a school that’s surrounded by very large gorges. A few years ago, the campus was struck by a spate of undergraduate suicides… There was a period where we were losing a student approximately every week.

    And so all the Professors and TA’s were instructed to remind students about the various counseling services. But, for the most part, few if any were willing to talk about any mental health problems they might have had or been having in front of the classes. Teachers without tenure were concerned about any stigma it might have on their record. TA’s — grad students — didn’t want to get identified as being “weak” or otherwise unable to cut the environment.

    But get any of these people in a room, with a promise of privacy, and it seemed like everyone had struggled with depression.

    So at the same time everyone was telling the undergrads that’s its ok to be depressed or seek help, no one was willing to talk publicly about their own issues. That’s the mixed message we continue to deal with as a nation.

  52. Wr says:

    @matt: The self-pity runs deep in this one. Another reason to delight in him heavily armed…

  53. Herb says:

    While a shocking statistic, it strikes me as unhelpful to include suicides in this discussion; it’s just a completely different animal than the murder of another.

    Not sure this makes sense….

    Car accidents are also a completely different animal than murder. Suicide and murder are strikingly similar in that they’re intentional acts leading to the deaths of an individual. I mean, what is a suicide but a self-inflicted murder?

  54. Alex Knapp says:

    In countries where the law causes guns to be less prevalent, suicide rates drop like a rock.

  55. matt says:

    @mattb:It’s sad to because removing the stigma would do a world of good for those that need the help but are afraid to admit it (more so then banning guns or putting suicide nets on bridges etc). Unfortunately as evidenced in this thread we’re a long way from having an intelligent honest conversation about such matters.

    @Wr: I currently have an Saiga that I converted myself into an AK clone. I also have a mossin nagant which is a high powered bolt action rifle from pre-WW2 and a CCW pistol that has never seen use outside of the range. If you think that’s heavily armed then you’d shit a brick over the arsenal we had at the farm I grew up on.

    So even though it’s been 20 years since my stupidity I should continue to bare the stigma?

    This is why you hear after a tragedy that the kid involved was “perfectly fine nothing was wrong with him”. Well he wasn’t perfectly fine and he wasn’t doing well but he was too afraid to admit it to anyone because he’d have to deal with this bullshit for the rest of his life..

  56. al-Ameda says:

    Well then, car owners need to step it up – more DUI’s, more texting while driving. I have confidence that gun deaths will never exceed car deaths.