More Than Half Of Firearm Deaths Are Suicides

After the recent Supreme Court decision, I've been having debates about gun control with various people. This article points out what I've been saying for years. I am not against the 2nd Amendment by any means but that also doesn't mean that having a gun in the home makes any sense. The idea here is that if you have a gun in the home, it adds a considerable variable to the equation. In this particular case, CNN discusses suicide.

"Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater."

"Studies have also shown that homes in which a suicide occurred were three to five times more likely to have a gun present than households that did not experience a suicide, even after accounting for other risk factors."

Perhaps the dialog needs to change from whether people should be able to have a gun at all, to whether or not it's a good idea. Most of the time, not even the biggest liberal hippies will support changing the constitution to suit their disdain for guns; changing the constitution for their own needs seems to be Republican territory ;) But let's at least acknowledge that having a gun in the home changes the game.

Are people that afraid to live in their home without a gun? Is someone stealing your TV worth their life (or yours)? What's the likelihood that one will find themselves in a situation where their family is being victimized by faceless evil-doers that somehow deserve to be shot....I suspect it's extraordinarily low. Either way, these folks ought to move to a better neighborhood.

In my own life, I've known four people who are now dead because of alcohol and having a gun in the house. In one case it was most likely depression, the other two were over a girl, and the fourth was over a dog that had been run over. It wasn't even his dog.