I mean, there is plenty of evidence of a relationship - which direction it goes in depends on what numbers you're talkin, what you include/leave out, etc.
But what we know is that of all firearm deaths, 55% are suicide. 40% are homicide. 3% are accidental. The reamining 2% are undetermined, of which they count things like death during acts of self-defense and incidents where cops kill suspects or bystanders but for which they aren't charged.
That's not a lot of firearm deaths which cry out for explanation. We know about the murders - a lot of it is criminal activity. Another portion is family violence.
I seriously doubt we are in dire need of explanations in re: suicide. In fact, I found the authors' 'plaints about military counselors not being able to talk about the military member's personal firearms really strange - and certainly a symptomatic reading of the problem. Gosh, there are suicidal members among our troops. Gosh, talkin to them about guns is going to make a dent. And golly gosh and gee whiz, if we could do that, fix that problem. Talk about the worst logic of the medical industry at play! If there are high rates of suicide among the military, maybe someone ought to look at the causes of the suicidal ideation and behavior and not worry about the way it's committed! For fuck's sake.
So, apparently, they want to investigate, what?, causes of firearm death and come up with interventions in terms of, what?, family violence? @@
Accidental deaths due to, say, stupid behavior - such as keeping loaded weapons around when you have children. Well, nevermind that these are fuckwits we are talking about, intervention doesn't seem very complicated here... We need more research for effective intervention - because education hasn't occurred to anyone? Or maybe, if people sleep with loaded weapons, it's because they live in an extremely dangerous neighborhood - or think they do? Or just fuckwits - for which there is no intervention. Honey Boo Boo, you know?
Then we are talking cops with guns... and self-defense. Apparently, we need big intervention for 1-2% of all firearm related deaths involving cops and self-defense incidents.
@@
At 09:19 PM 12/21/2012, Wojtek S wrote:
>This is a gem, Doug. Thanks for posting. Now I understand why there is no
>evidence of a relationship between gun ownership and death and injury.
>Censored by the US gun lobby.
>
>Wojtek
>Sent from my Droid
>On Dec 21, 2012 9:05 PM, "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> > I've been letting this all go by without comment, but a few interesting
> > facts I cam across today:
> >
> > How the NRA et al suppressed research into gun violence:
> > http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1487470.
> >
> > Which includes references to articles including:
> >
> > People carrying a gun 5x more likely to be shot than the unarmed:
> > http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099
> >
> > Purchase of a gun doubles risk of death from suicide or homicide:
> > http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.87.6.974
> >
> > Research of that sort can no longer be done because of federal and state
> > restrictions won by the gun lobby.
> >
> > Doug
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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