Not so strange that the red follows mountains. A lot of the red is where hunters are. I rode my bike down the Rockies this summer, through that deep red line, and all the way down, everywhere I stopped, the motels, hotels, bars and restaurants “used antlers in all of their decorating,” like Gaston. Hunting is a huge thing in the Mountain West.
I’d be interested to know what happens when one crosses the Canadian border. Do the mountainous areas of Canada have a similar gun death rate? Plenty of Canadians hunt. Do the stiffer Canadian gun laws keep the rate down?
If we want to be pedantic about it, the courts are supposed to judge what is constitutional, not decide what is constitutional. Anyone can judge for themselves what is constitutional, only the court can impact law enforcement by doing so.
Sure, that’s why we care more about what they judge rather than what Joe on the street does. But I was being pedantic. I even prefaced my statement with that. There’s nothing incorrect with stating that “constitutional” is in the eye of the beholder. Because anyone can judge what is constitutional and what is not.
Don’t agree with that, Vlad. Many people have no clue about the constituent or the amendments. Used to love Jay Leno’s man on the street interviews where it was painfully obvious how little Joe on the street knew.
That doesn’t even appear to intend to contradict what I said or the statement “‘constitutional’ is in the eye of the beholder.” Different people can have reasonable interpretations of the constitution. The supreme court does not decide the law or what the constitution says, they judge, meaning interpret, the constitution. You can listen to Joe’s interpretation and think he’s an idiot, doesn’t mean it’s not a judgement.
It wasn’t an argument, it was a correction of your correction. You attempted to correct someone else who did not say something incorrect. I corrected your correction. It was you who was attempting to be pedantic first.
Let’s start with these rocket scientists. Am sure they’ll be able to wax eloquently about the constitution and amendments and espouse reasonable opinions about possible interpretations (except maybe the grandpa- the last guy, he has some demonstrable basic knowledge). http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf0a2u_jay-walking-citizens-show-no-knowle_news
OK Vlad, you’re right, anyone and everyone can have their own opinion about what the Constitution means. For example, I have the opinion that the term “well-regulated militia” in the Second Amendment which gun nuts conveniently ignore means that, if you want to own a gun, you have the join the army, and that they will strictly control its use.
So let me put a finer point on it. The only opinions that have the force of law are the courts’ opinions and ultimately SCOTUS’s opinion.
^^^ As usual, the people who would benefit from tighter regulations/govt regulations are the ones who vehemently oppose them. But you can’t teach stupid.
A lot of us probably just don’t see the point in reducing suicides by firearms.
As far as suicide methods go, a firearm is probably the best way. People jumping off buildings create a big mess and can damage other people or property. Same with jumping in front of a train, which then impacts transportation. Pills and hanging often don’t work. A firearm is a highly effective method that doesn’t put others at risk.
The relation between firearms homicides is pretty weak, and even weaker between firearms ownership and all murders.
That is about the most distasteful/insensitive post I have read in a long time, vlad. You try cleaning up blood and organ spatter after a successful suicide. Many of these are committed at home, where the grieving family has to live after cleaning up their loved ones mess.
Well, that is how I lost my best friend, so I certainly see the point! To the best of my knowledge, reducing gun ownership corresponds to reduced suicide rates overall, because suicide is often committed “of the moment” and forcing someone to consider a slower and/or more painful method often causes them to reconsider.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, Vlad. I’m going to assume that you’re not an awful, callous person who doesn’t care if people die as long as you don’t know them. I’m going to assume, instead, that you are under the mistaken impression that people who kill themselves with guns would have killed themselves in a different way if they hadn’t had guns.
The good news is, as far as we can tell, this is completely wrong. If we ignore gun suicides, the suicide rate is about the same between people in gun-owning households and people not in gun-owning households. But if we look only at gun suicides, they are about six times higher in households with guns.
In other words, the choice is not between a person killing himself with a gun and that person using another method. Rather, it’s a choice between the person dying and the person not dying.
There is an impulse control problem in this country and ready access to guns creates explosive events. Sane and reasonable people have anger problems, emotional problems, and make trigger decisions, not always good ones - these people and those around them are the ones that would be helped by not having a gun around.
We have a lot of irresponsible people in this country. They don’t safely lock and store their guns and the kids and the neighbors kids shoot each other.
Not everyone that kills with a gun is mentally ill - some have little self control, others are very irresponsible, and some are just bad people.