65 of 108 (the real number) are suicides, 1 are unintentional, 1 are undetermined, 2 are police shootings. 39 are actual homicides, 80% of which are gang related. I’m no mathematician but looks to me like we have a suicide and gang issue, not a gun issue. https://t.co/3pX8fdX4uH https://t.co/wln86OkM9q
— Colion Noir (@MrColionNoir) June 8, 2019
By Will
Gun control might not be an oft-discussed topic recently, but I think that it is an important one. Why? Because the gun control lobby is lying to us. Still. Like with other “pandemics,” such as the topic of the moment, Coronavirus, our friends on the left use fear and very misleading numbers as the basis of their arguments.
Rather than objectively looking at the evidence, they cherry-pick data and then misuse or misrepresent it. The most distorted among these are gang violence and suicides.
Gang Violence
“Gun violence,” as it’s currently known, is a problem in America. I completely agree with that and think that there are potential solutions to it. However, law-abiding gun owners are overwhelmingly responsible individuals. Aside from an insignificant minority, they don’t commit crimes.
On the other hand, gun-related gang violence is a massive problem in America. Those (illegal) gun owners frequently use firearms to commit crimes. Those gang-related shootings, homicides, and other forms of violence show up in the general gun violence data. In response, many on both the left and the right propose gun control as a response.
But gun control won’t work. It’s only relevant to the law-abiding gun owners. The ones who don’t use their weapons to commit crimes. Gang members, on the other hand, don’t care about the law. They’re criminals. So it doesn’t matter to them that certain types and classes of weapons are made illegal. They’re breaking the law anyway.
Gun violence — crimes involving the use of firearms — could be limited by focusing on reducing gang membership. Education and policing reforms could be very effective at cutting down the number of gangs, and gang members in America. Then we would certainly see a drop in gun violence.
As the tweet at the top shows, many homicides are gang-related killings. So are many so-called “mass shootings.” While those incidents are tragic, including gang-related gun crimes with more traditional mass shootings and homicides is misleading.
Because most homicides are gang-related, gun control will be ineffective at cutting the homicide rate, and the only ones who think otherwise are people who don’t understand that the gun control lobby is lying to them. Instead, these laws will only punish law-abiding gun owners. That shouldn’t happen; the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding gun owners should be respected.
Suicide
Suicide is a horrible tragedy. I firmly believe that societies should do every reasonable thing that it can to cut down the suicide rate around the world. But gun control is not a rational response to suicide.
Most people who commit suicide are people who technically should be allowed to own a firearm. Although they are often depressed, they have done nothing wrong. It would be a gross violation of civil liberties to prohibit the sale of firearms to anyone who seems depressed. Not only would that be ineffective, it, like all gun control attempts, would punish the innocent along with the guilty.
Furthermore, it is not the role of government to get involved in the lives of law-abiding citizens. That is a cure worse than the disease because of how much it would limit individual liberty and our right to privacy.
Controlling the availability of firearms to law-abiding citizens is morally wrong and would most likely have a limited effect on suicide rates.
So, what can be done? The mental health system should be reformed. Concerned friends and family members should be able to report people who they think are struggling so that those people can be checked out.
Having a professional work with those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts could be effective, but the patient and doctor have to be connected. Setting up a report line and allowing concerned friends and family to submit names could be a great way to connect patients and doctors.
Additionally, those involved with treating patients who have suicidal tendencies should rely on more personal care and fewer pills. Medicines have their place. But many psychoactive drugs have dangerous and unpredictable side effects on the mental health of those taking them.
These are powerful tools, but can also be quite dangerous. Doctors and psychiatrists should work with their patients in person to help them through their problems rather than relying on pills.
Suicide is a complex problem. I don’t have all the answers; I probably don’t have any good answers or solutions. But what I do know is that gun control won’t work and that when people say it will, they only think that because the gun control lobby is lying to them.
As with gangs, those who want a gun will always be able to get one. We should focus on patient care, not restricting individual rights for society as a whole.
Conclusion
Suicide and gang violence are complex topics. They are also responsible for the overwhelming majority of firearm-related homicides. Too many people die from such “gun violence.” That is an issue that needs to be addressed in a variety of ways.
But gun control will not fix either problem, and restricting law-abiding citizens’ access to firearms is both unconstitutional and immoral. Gang members will always be able to get weapons. Those who really want to commit suicide will find a way to do so.
However, if more gun control is put in place to try and fix those issues, then everyone will be punished. That makes it not only an ineffective policy, but also an immoral one that will lead to the deaths of innocents.
We need to be on the lookout for these attacks by an emotional, reactionary minority on our Second Amendment rights. Gun control laws have proven to be ineffective time and again. To pretend otherwise is both dishonest and dangerous.
The gun control lobby is lying to us. It wants us to believe not only that gun violence rampant in America (it’s not), but also that gun control is an effective solution to the violence we do have. Don’t listen to the braying gun control crowd. Their ideas don’t work. They will only restrain your freedom and your liberty.
Will publishes www.genzconservative.com on which gun control is a frequent topic.
I had two friends who killed themselves. One jumped off a tall building. The other hung himself with a wire. Neither had a gun. Maybe they would have been better off if they did.
Ralph,
Sad fact: people who survive suicide attempts by way of jumping off of a bridge almost universally report regretting their attempt the very instant that their foot left the bridge — and being thankful that their attempt failed.
It’s too bad nobody interviewed the jumpers who succeeded. Maybe they felt regret, but I’m inclined to believe that they felt fear.
Unfortunately, I have known several people who either committed suicide or attempted to. They were pretty evenly divided between use of guns and other means. One of them even used a shotgun to their head- and lived! The point is that if one is depressed enough than having a firearm available or not will not deter the person from the attempt. Japan has a much higher suicide rate with practically no firearms.
Who knows how many single car accidents are actually suicide attempts?
It all comes down to what their true motives really are….and lies and half-truths are coin of the realm for them…their goals are increasingly obvious…
What ever sells the story….Right!
Liars? What else would you expect coming from a group whose Gun Control Spew is Rooted in Racism and Genocide?
you might need a new v15 lll there, kid.
Pure suicide is like abortion…your body…your choice…
some may think it is selfish…but everyone has opinions
Murder-suicide is something else…start with the suicide, go from there if you feel you must…
You brought it up so….The difference with abortion is that it isn’t just your body involved.
The “your body, your choice” people have a serious problem.
First, try going into a police station and shooting up, or shorting. See how far your “my body, my choice” gets you.
Second, if you think you don’t matter to other people, you’re just wrong.
Stop being so self-important.
“Second, if you think you don’t matter to other people, you’re just wrong.”
Humans are sovereign individuals*. They are the rulers over their own bodies, but not other bodies, internal or external. When a person decides they don’t want to play anymore, no other body has moral authority to override that decision. The fact that we invest emotional energy in the mere presence of another body is our sovereign choice. If we suffer for it, it is the result of our sovereign choice to assign ownership of that piece of ourselves to another person.
Asking a person bent on suicide if they have calculated all the outcomes, and are certain they are done with us is one thing, stopping suicide is forcing our will upon another sovereign individual. Forcing our will on another so that we can avoid the consequence of investing in another is a tyranny (a form of owning another?)
*Those under the age of 16 might not be able to intelligently understand their condition, and positive options.
When someone uses the term “gun violence” they are using the terminology of the gun grabbers and doing so is promoting the agenda of the left.
There is no such thing as “gun violence”. There is people violence, and a person can use any number of things to perform violence on someone. A gun, knife or a rock is just a tool that may be used in violent actions. None of them are inherently anything except inert until a person acts.
The OP somewhat addressed this when referring to gangs and their criminal ways.
Gun control does not reduce crime, only criminal control will do that.
Not only there is no “gun violence”, there is also exactly zero Americans killed BY guns every day. Some people kill themselves or others WITH a gun and no, it’s not the same thing.
“Not only there is no “gun violence”, there is also exactly zero Americans killed BY guns every day.”
An existential fight is not a language class. You fight the war your enemy is fighting, not the war you want.
When a customer walks into your store and says they want to buy a “TV set”, the first thing you don’t do is tell the customer that “TV set” is not a thing anymore. The second thing you don’t tell them is “Television is not longer the sole function of today’s view ports that are components of “the internet of things”, doing so much more than simply displaying moving images on a viewing surface.” What you do is ensure you properly translate the customer’s language into a selling opportunity; you accept the customer’s statement to mean they just want to buy a new box that broadcasts all the television shows they like to watch.
We POTG delight in dismissing anyone who isn’t hip to technical terms, and allowing the message of the unhip to resonate with other unhip people, while permitting anti-gunners to continue claiming we are stuck on terminology, when there are important matters at hand. “Everybody knows a ‘clipazine’ is the thingy where a gun stores bullets until they are shot. Why make such a big deal about it.” “Everybody knows ‘gun violence’ means guns are dangerous, and killing too many innocent people.”
While we stand on the street corner proudly proclaiming we will not engage the enemy until they use our methods, language and rules. If demanding the anti-gun mob use what we consider to be correct nomenclatures is our best sales pitch, well….
“You fight the war your enemy is fighting, not the war you want. ”
Not really.
You should never let the enemy set the terms for your battles. Doing so means you will be fighting to his strengths. Instead, you want to fight to your enemy’s weaknesses. Trust me on this. There are no general anywhere who will tell you to hit the enemy is hos strongest. Always look for his weaknesses.
In the instance at hand, yes, hammer the fact (and it is a fact) that “gun violence” doesn’t exist, and is a made up term, just like “assault weapon.” To do otherwise is to let your enemy dictate the terms of the battle. Just ask John McCain how well that went.
“Second, if you think you don’t matter to other people, you’re just wrong.”
The enemy always sets the terms. The enemy is not where you want. The enemy does not have the same moral compass. The enemy presents situations such that you must react. The enemy chooses the targets of his/her campaign. The enemy decides to stand, or retreat. The enemy presents you with conflicts to your own assumptions, goals and beliefs. Except for total, complete, irreversible annihilation, the enemy decides when the battle is over. What do you think is going on in Afghanistan/Iraq?
Unless one is willing to do whatever is necessary to render the enemy incapable of pressing their attack, the enemy will attack…and you will respond, even when you think it shouldn’t be necessary to keep fighting.
The parallels to the war against Japan, and the mess in Vietnam are interesting. In both cases, the US military won battles, over and over, yet the enemy refused to acknowledge defeat, creating ever-growing casualty lists. In the Pacific War, the US was faced with unimaginable casualties required to forcefully subjugate the Japanese military, thus the atomic bombs. In Vietnam, as with Japan in ’45, the US military won again and again. But, the enemy exacted a price in casualties the nation refused to accept. In 1973, the US was incapable of doing what was necessary to obtain final victory. The US fought the war it wanted, the enemy fought a total war. The US wanted to persuade the enemy to not be naughty. The enemy wanted to do what was necessary to obtain the goal of domination over the entire peninsula. (Yes, Korea was precursor, and we melted even then…sending a message, not willing to decide the issue permanently ).
With Japan, the enemy fought for victory, or utter annihilation, the US fought for surrender of the enemy. In Korea, the enemy fought to win, and to prevent annihilation. The US/UN fought to send a message about borders. In Vietnam, the enemy fought to rid the peninsula of foreign troops, the US was sending a message about recognizing borders.
Thus, you end up fighting the war the enemy wants. Prepping the battlefield is a whole ‘nuther thing.
How “complex” is it to understand that gang violence comes from making certain drugs illegal and the black market that forms to fill the needs of those who want those drugs? People who are criminals by selling certain things have no recourse to the courts so they just start shooting. I’m still waiting for a Constitutional Amendment to make certain drugs illegal like we did with alcohol. Blunder that it was. Oh, and if you want to see where all the violence is all you have to do is look at a map of Democrat controlled areas. So, Democrats cause violent crime, too! Seems pretty simple to me. Make drugs legal and ban Democrats! And before anyone can try to label me I don’t use illegal drugs.
Did the Mafia just pack up and disappear when Prohibition was repealed? Criminals will just move on into other crimes.
Most of the things that they would move on to would be legal anyway, or are close to it. Numbers, you have heard of legalized gambling? Prostitution, almost done. Kidnapping, well that’s what the guns are for.
I am not sure that legalization of all intoxicating substances is the total answer, but it’s worth exploring.
Well, yes, for large part they even moved into legal business, like gambling in Las Vegas. There just isn’t any other illegal activity that can bring them as much profit as illegal drugs. May it be marijuana, coke, heroin or whiskey.
As for gangs, why aren’t gang members automatically charged with conspiracy to commit crime on top of any other charge?
“Well, yes, for large part they even moved into legal business, like gambling in Las Vegas.”
Let us not forget the monopolies on garbage and construction in N.Y./N.J., as well as Longshoremen, trucking and the AFL/CIO… All very legit and ALL corrupted by organized crime…
This follows the proposition that drug dealers are, at their core, simply merchants who are only incidentally criminals because their wares have been criminalized. Perhaps some are, but there’s another possibility that we need to consider: that they are, at their core, criminals, who are only incidentally in the drug trade because drugs prohibition has cleared any straight-and-narrow competitors out of the market. In the first case, legalization transforms criminal drug dealers into legitimate merchants. In the second case, it turns criminal drug dealers into criminal pimps, illegal arms dealers, etc.
Prohibition is a point, but there are certain drugs that have to be illegal, because they are so addictive and/or dangerous in how they modify behavior. When you have drugs that will cause people to commit crimes and/or kill to get their next fix, those should not be legal. When you have drugs that at best make a person crazy and at worst, outright violent, they should not be legal.
Another thing to consider: Lots of people talk about the War on Drugs being a failure, but some would argue that the War on Drugs is in fact part of what drove down the high levels of criminal violence, and gun violence, that were occurring in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Regarding the claim that the War on Drugs can never be won, no it can’t, but the response to that is that it’s a constant battle, and by engaging in it, you keep the negative affects of drugs on society to a minimum. Same with dealing with poverty and corruption. You can never eliminate them, but you can, through proper policies and institutions, reduce them heavily.
Legalization of drugs thus could be a major negative for gun rights proponents.
If you want to see where “successful” gun-control legislation goes look no further than National Prohibition. When you create laws that specifically prohibit routine, customary, and traditional behavior you can virtually guarantee that upwards of 50% of the American population will disobey those laws. Doesn’t much matter which behavior you want to ban—if it’s a part of people’s everyday routine making it illegal simply won’t work.
Despite National Prohibition’s constitutional amendment and accompanying moral justifications, bootlegging, speakeasys, and bathtub-gin flourished.
I’ve seen suicides every way it can be done. It is a hard thing to look at. Never understood it. If things get that bad I just thought I’d pack my bags and start over somewhere else.
Ditto.
Gadsden,
Spent three years as a jail chaplain, also doing post-release work. Lost a number of post-release people to drug overdose. Drugs…slow suicide.
Decided criminal justice was not for me. Too many criminals.
The fight over “gun control” is political and legal.
This issues of suicide and crime are mental health and social issues.
The gun-controllers conflate these issues, but the reality is that ‘guns’ are an ideological divide. The social and health issues are used as arguments, but only because the divide was already there.
When people see a reason to change their ideology, they become open to new information. All the recent new gun owners illustrates that point (to a limited degree; they may relapse when the crisis fades).
While we need to stridently and loudly proclaim the facts, we will win by changing people’s emotions. There are some real heroes on TTAG who have been taking people shooting, getting them past their fears, building interest. That is how we win.
In the day-to-day media, we counter the lies with truth, but we make friends face-to-face.
I’ve always challenged anyone who wants to debate me to do so using facts, not feelings. Friends, coworkers, students, doesn’t matter, once they stay from verifiable numbers things go sideways fast. Learning that you can debate and disagree and still be friends is a task for some, and learning to debate rationally and not ply the emotions or devolve into an argument and personal attacks is daunting as well.
Scooter,
Here, here!!
We cannot lose when we remain civil; we might not convince, but we keep doors open and we keep those synapses firing.
One hard-and-fast rule that I’ve found to be invaluable is this one from my high-school debate coach: never, ever, lose your temper in a discussion. If you get mad, you’ve already lost the debate. While it can sometimes be entertaining to make the other person mad, once this happens meaningful communication stops and, if this is your purpose for engaging in conversation in the first place—you still lose. It is far, far better to keep your temper under control and learn to make your points logically and concisely (I can still hear Jack Gregory’s voice telling me). A perfect example of what I’m talking about is Ted Cruz’s well ordered defense of the 2nd amendment.
Garrison,
Thank you for posting that video clip!
In another 4 years, Cruz may be running for President, again.
He has a decent chance if he tells Glenn Beck to stay home.
This was a very, “Thanks, Captain Obvious” piece of journalism. Not inaccurate, just no new news here.
“The Lies the Gun Control Industry Tells”
Yes. And ?
The gun control mafia would respond to whichever stats we put forward: “It would be alot worse without gun control. It will be alot better with more gun control. So, if it saves even one….”
To which we can respond with news reports of people — not debatable statistics, but real individuals — who successfully defended themselves by using a gun, and point out that if it only saves one…and not only if, but it already *has*. Proof, right in front of your eyes.
It’ll bounce right off them, though. Their minds are closed.
Without lies the Anti Constitutionalist ,un American gun grabbers wouldn’t have zhit and they know It, a movement built on quick sand that will swallow the Marxist Left up.
When the gun grabbers, mothers and such say they only want a conversation or there needs to be a conversation, it’s almost funny except it’s not. Sure they’ll have a conversation as long as they tell us what they want, we SHUT up and most certainly don’t bring up or talk facts or statistics because that counter to THEIR narrative.
Jeremy Ball of Sharp Shooting in Spokane was on the news with two gun grabbers and lets just say it didn’t go well at all for the grabbers. They looked incredibly inept. It was almost embarrassing.
I’ve raised the same points about THEIR conversation before. THEY talk, WE shut up, listen, and OBEY.
@ Southern Cross
60+ old guys aren’t much into listening and obeying….especially over BS we don’t agree with, like or believe.
I’m for damn sure not paying any attention to some squid like Hogg boy or those orange shirt ignorant “Mothers” or whatever blinded, programmed imbecile flaps his jaws with some bogus line of malarkey.
MDA is what happens when Karen’s and their spineless simp husbands get together and make emotional decisions and develop “solutions” based on magical thinking. Liberty is scary, and requires responsibility. I am a responsible person and there are millions of responsible gun owners. Magical thinking solutions punish everyone else for the misdeeds of a few. These Karen’s need to worry about themselves and their own families.
On rare occasions, gun restriction groups will recognize the effectiveness of focusing on gang activity rather than whatever ban is currently fashionable.
“Project Longevity, which has gained national attention for its effective strategies to reduce gun violence, and has become a national model of state-level support for evidence-based violence reduction strategies. The program, which was first launched in 2012, has helped reduce rates of gun violence by over 50 percent in urban areas of Connecticut.”
https://giffords.org/press-release/2017/12/ct-longevity/
Explain to me again how “banning” guns will keep them away from people who’s whole org is based on wrangling stuff that’s banned.
80% ‘gang violence’. curious what the number rises to when you factor in all low-life on low-life killings? In the 90s?
Don’t be involved in crime and you reduce your already minuscule risk of being a ‘gun violence’ victim by orders of magnitude
I can’t remember how many articles, comments, and white papers I’ve read over the last 50 years about how gun control is bad. I’ve been hearing it as long as I’ve been involved in fighting the socialist, liberal types and that goes all the way back to before GCA 68. We’ve had some successes along the way, but not nearly enough, and its mostly been nothing but slugging it out in the trenches, and putting up with the ridicule and denigration of those rabid fools on the left who want nothing but to dismantle the Bill of Rights and tell me how to live my life. Its long past talking about it. Its time to fight back and do more than just mouth platitudes.
Having taught Suicide Intervention as well as Intervened in several preattempts over my Army career, I can say that for a small percentage of the cost of enforcing any of these gun laws we can train thousands of people to spot the signs and enough to intervene to make a substantial dent in suicide completion numbers.
Guns may be convenient for attempts but taking them away will just drive people to other methods. Drinking draino is messy and not nearly as effective as one might think (but does really mess you up).
No expert on gangs but having served at a DoD prison facility, if someone wants to kill someone of another ilk they will find a way even in the strictest environment.
Suicides and gang violence are easier for gun rights proponents to deal with. The gun controllers argue about those, but it doesn’t engender hard government action really. What truly endangers gun rights are when the mass shootings occur. For example, that package of gun control that Virginia just passed, with Governor Blackface promising an attempt at an assault weapons ban next year? That was in response to a mass shooting that occurred.
Probably a majority of the major gun control legislation we’ve seen over the past seven years has been due to the raft of mass shootings that have occurred.Twenty get killed in a mass shooting, it’s, “OMG.” Twenty get killed in gang violence in Chicago, it’s, “Meh.”
“Like with other “pandemics,” such as the topic of the moment, Coronavirus”
Way to undo any point you were going to make.
First of all, there are NO “illegal gun owners”. There are those who possess guns that are illegally obtained, ie: stolen, however, that is another matter and should be addressed in the same vein as those possessing a stolen computer would not be an “illegal computer owner” but a possessor of stolen property. One could argue that the term “illegal gun owners” encompasses this, however, “illegal gun owners” is a convenient basket to define “good” from “bad” owners of guns. Sort of a “we are holier than thou’ situation used to appease the 2A haters.
Since there are zero Constitutional gun laws in this country I believe we should jettison the “illegal gun owner” category in favor of something a little more accurate that does not give the civil rights haters some sort of traction.
“First of all, there are NO “illegal gun owners”.”
No matter what you and I think about constitutionality of it, the federal law currently prohibits felons from owning firearms. So in reality there is such a group as “illegal gun owners”.
The biggest lie gun grabbers spread around is that the reason why they are pushing public disarmament is to save lives.
The real reason why they don’t want us, the people, to have firearms, is power. They want more of it, so they have to take it away from us by disarming us. They couldn’t care less about lives lost. That’s just a handy pretense, useful to pull the heartstrings of the gullible. If they cared about saving lives, they would consider all the lives saved by armed defenders and as the author suggests, concentrate on gangs and suicide help.
We need to call them out on this main lack of sincerity of their motive. The general public needs to see that it is us, gun rights advocates, who aims to save innocent lives. That it’s gun grabbers, not us, who deserves to be called callous, heartless, greedy, anti freedom monsters.