Congress 101: If You Want Success, Don't Mess With the Gun Lobby

NY Times ^ | October 3, 2004 | DOROTHY SAMUELS

[neverdem]

I don't recognize this dingbat's name. Maybe she's a new hire. I'm not aware of studies showing that Child Access Prevention(CAP) laws prevent suicide. I found no studies at PubMed.

Here are two studies you may want to note:

Homicide and suicide rates associated with implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws

[flashbunny]

For the moron who wrote this:

1. If they can't use a gun to kill themselves, they'll find another way. Look at japan - they have a higher suicide rate than the US and they outlaw guns completely.

2. The $82 million program inspired by this senator won't make one damn bit of difference either way in the suicide rate of teens. All it will do is spend $82 million of tax dollars that people could otherwise have to spend on their families.

Sorry about the congressman's loss, but spending taxpayer money as a way to deal with your personal grief accomplishes nothing.

[GSlob]

Suicide is not a disease, but rather a somewhat particular form of Darwinian natural selection. Thus it is not within Center of Disease Control and Prevention competence (or congressional competence, for that matter). Why not try (as an exercise) to prevent the change of seasons, or even stop a minor volcano St. Helens?

[neverdem]

BANG

The first study's result is interesting in that it showed suicide rates didn't change, just the method of suicide for those over 55 years old.

[endthematrix]

Archie Bunker says it best. When Gloria tells him how many people are dying from gunshots, he says "Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of a window?" Go Archie!

[neverdem]

LOL!!!

[risk]

Gun "lobby." This label is how HCI, inc. frames anyone who stands for the second amendment in our Capitol.

[Squantos]

A person intent on suicide will accomplish their goal with or without a firearm. Guard rails and sudden stops don't stop jumpers nor do gun laws make rabbits safer from coyotes. Arm the bunnies.

[xm177e2]

I'm still waiting for them to describe NARAL as the "abortion lobby" and point out how unpopular certain forms of abortion are. Why "so-called partial birth abortion" but not "so-called assault weapons?"

[July 4th]

reinstating every hunter's sacred Second Amendment right to nail Bambi with an AK-47

Did someone write the word "hunter" into the Constitution while I was sleeping? I could have sworn that wasn't a qualification for owning a firearm...

[endthematrix]

Actually they have been using "extremists" to describe the gun lobby. Now the NRA (with blessings) have followed suit. No use defending, hit 'em back using their own game.

[Pajama Blogger]

"Some 4,000 young Americans take their own lives each year,"

Nothing more than culling the heard.

[Morgan's Raider]

Firearms figure in about half of all youth suicides, and by now it is neither secret nor speculative that having a firearm at home significantly increases the chance of a depressed adolescent ending his or her own life.

Speculation. More likely the presence of Ritalin, Luvox, and other psychotropic drugs in the bloodstream significantly increases the chance of any adolescent committing suicide more than any availabillity of firearms in the home.

[umgud]

Just think, the $200 billion that Bush has spent on the wrong war at the wrong time, could have saved all 4,000 of these kids. Right?

[backhoe]

Some general-purpose references:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/711949/posts
Do Guns Save Lives?

-Empty-Barrel Gun Policies-A legacy of nonsense from Clinton, Blair, and the Left--

-A Problem With Guns (Long... but SOOOO good)--

Shooting More Holes in Gun Control

HCI Aussie Style (read it and weep-or laugh)

The Great Australian Gun Law CON!

Gun Crimes Surge in London

Through the Looking Glass and Back Again - From Anti-gunner to Firearms Instructor in Four Months

Swiss Gun Laws- and some rebuttal to HCI "spin"-- Thread II

Statistical Facts Gun-haters Run From

---

Most everything I could find on the AWB is here:

-Smart Guns / Foolish Legislators--The Assault Weapons Ban May Be Bush's Undoing--

[Batrachian]

We have definitely won this issue for the time being. Let's press our advantage and make sure that politicians understand it very clearly. A vote for gun control means unemployment for a politician. No two ways about it. Politicians can stand up for their anti-gun principals and then move on to the private sector because they will not be reelected.

Speaking of which, I'd like to see a little more focus on Kerry's record on gun control. We've been so fixated on Iraq and Vietnam that this has slid under the radar.

[TwoWolves]

No, it hasn't. :) Check out the NRA's website. They have a very nice ad about Senator Kerry's voting record on gun control.

[LibertarianInExile]

For the same reason HCI isn't the "harridan lobby." For the same reason NOW isn't the "hairy lobby."

Because half the press corps has a membership card, and the other half is far too liberal to join 'mainstream' groups like those.

[SauronOfMordor]

Speculation. More likely the presence of Ritalin, Luvox, and other psychotropic drugs in the bloodstream significantly increases the chance of any adolescent committing suicide more than any availabillity of firearms in the home.

We've had guns in homes in the US since the earliest colonies. We've had troubled teens since the dawn of time. Yet it seems like it's only been around the last 20 years that we've had problems with mass school killings. Coincidently, it's been in the last 20 years that we've been heavily drugging kids

[lotex]

I personally do not own a gun, but many in my family are hunters. Sadly to say my aunt's only son was killed during a hunting ACCIDENT. It is not the guns, it is the people using them. Until all the messed up minds are dealt with there will be messed up people with guns, poisons, wmds, etc. trying to hurt other people. FIX THE PEOPLE TO FIX THE PROBLEM!!