US surgeon general declares gun violence a public health crisis
US surgeon general declares gun violence a public health crisis
The U.S. surgeon general is declaring gun violence a public health crisis, driven by a growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms in the country. Dr.
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I hope I can ask this without leading to a bunch of religious fervor about pro or anti-2A. For the record I support having some rights to guns, but as long as anyone claims 2A is a reason we can't have sensible legislation about guns, then I'm against 2A entirely. I say that in effort to establish I'm not asking in bad faith.
Violent crime is at an all time low, according to many articles. So how is gun violence at an all time high? Is there an excess of non-criminal gun violence? Like perhaps suicide is at a high? Police shootings making up the difference? Is there gun violence showing up in hospitals that isn't being reported to law enforcement? Is there a different standard of what constitutes gun violence between the healthcare and law enforcement communities?
I read the article and a couple of linked ones, but I couldn't find any answer. At first glance it doesn't seem like both things can be true, but I'm going to assume instead I'm just missing part of the picture, so what is it?
It's suicides. Almost 60% of gun deaths are suicides.
Gun deaths reached their last peak in the US around 1975. At that time the rate between homicide and suicide was about 50/50. So it's not like suicides were very low with guns, guns are probably the most quick and effective way to kill yourself and if you want to be dead, using a gun is the gold standard. Still, from 50% to 60% is a very significant change. It's also important to note, there is more variability in gun homicide than there is in suicide (though there is still a little bit of a positive correlation), so in times of low violent crime the disparity grows.
Thank you, genuinely. I'll see if I can confirm that explanation independently, but that gives me an angle to research.
And we know it's not the guns that magically make people more suicidal...as there are multiple countries with basically 0 access to firearms with higher suicide rates than we have here in the USA. Japan is the main one.
Actually some countries with the highest suicide rates have decent gun control. Japan isn't in the top 10, and South Korea is the Asian country with high suicide rates and has strong gun control. Here are the 2024 countries with the most suicides per 100k, and the USA/Japan for reference.
Lesotho 72.4
Guyana 40.3
Eswatini 29.4
South Korea 28.6
Kiribati 28.3
Micronesia 28.2
Lithuania 26.1
Suriname 25.4
Russia 25.1
South Africa 23.5
#23 USA 16.1
#25 Japan 15.3
Here are the estimated guns owned per hundred residents
Lesotho 4.8
Guyana 15.8
Eswatini 4.8
South Korea 0.2
Kiribati 0.8
Micronesia 0.7
Lithuania 13.6
Suriname 15.9
Russia 12.3
South Africa 9.7
USA 120.5
Japan 0.3
I would need to graph this data for every country and year over year to see if there is a correlation. It would be hard to extrapolate especially considering so many different cultural beliefs on suicide and gun control/ownership.
If you compare the US with countries with very strict gun laws, e.g. Europe, you'll probably find that the difference between their low gun violence rate and the high gun violence rate in the US is related to the easy access to weapons in the US.
It's also related to the general inequality in the US compared to Europe, especially economic. It created a lot of desperation in the US. But half the country is also not willing to do anything about that, because that's "socialism" or whatever. And round and round we go.
Sure but that isn't the point of my question, and treads perilously close to the area I'm trying to avoid. I'm not interested in the political decision here, but the facts that purport to underlie it.
I can't argue in favor of this action citing facts that not only seem to be bullshit, but also threaten to undermine the narrative that people don't need guns for protection because violent crime is so low.
Here we have the surgeon general saying gun violence is so bad it's an emergency. How is that going to play with people who hoard guns out of xenophobic paranoia over their own safety?
How is that going to play with people who hoard guns out of xenophobic paranoia over their own safety?
The only reason it matters is because you are bordering on being a failed state that is not in control of its territory.
Things can be better than they used to be, and still not be good or acceptable.
Absolutely. I'm not saying this shouldn't have been done. But the article states the reason for it is an all time high gun violence and I'm just having trouble reconciling that with all time low violent crime.
If this is a tool that can be effective in addressing gun violence, I'm 100% for it. But I can't fucking stand bullshit. If you can't build a case for taking action without lying to people, stay at the drawing board until you work it out.
That said, just because something trips my bullshit meter doesn't mean it's a lie. So I'd be remiss not to seek out a better understanding. I'm damn sure going to be called out on it myself if I defend it to more right-leaning folks in my life, so my own reputation is on the line and I'm not going to be caught repeating bullshit when I argue so hard to get them to check their facts.
I imagine it's stuff like these 2 articles linked in the op
https://apnews.com/article/gun-violence-science-health-covid-mental-20f5e2cb5fb50ff747fe316fdc4db5c4
https://apnews.com/article/violence-mass-shootings-summer-b004331ee7d3da95bce6646547f8d43f
The study shows gun violence rising, and that does include suicides. Though its most likely spurred on by the mass shootings mentioned in the second link. Taking those together explains the proposed measures.
That makes sense. So you're suggesting that maybe the number of violent crimes has gone down but the number of victims per crime has gone up? It doesn't seem like there are enough mass shootings to account for that big of a difference, but I can see where it would contribute. Suicides seems to be the leading candidate for now.
Not all gun violence includes crimes (suicides), and not all violent crimes involve guns
Not all violent crime is gun violence.
You used to have 20,000 violent crimes a year, 500 of which were violent gun crimes. Now you have 5000 violent crimes a year and they're mostly gun violence, then violent crime would be at an all time low while gun violence was at an all time high.
I'm completely making this up, but that's how I read it.
Could be. I just picture guns to be involved in a much larger proportion of violent crimes.
What constitutes violent crime? I would assume crimes that don't involve guns have gone down enough to make up the difference.
That's definitely part of the question.
It's almost as if there is a narrative trying to be pushed regardless of whether it aligns with the facts...
You got us. We’re pushing the nefarious narrative of *checks notes* helping you idiots not get shot.
You have a higher chance of getting killed by bees or lightning than dying from a "mass shooting". Most gun violence is gang related. It's like people think the usa is dangerous everywhere. When in reality it's super safe in 99.9999% of the country. It's not the guns, its our society that's troubled and it seems neither side wants to actively work on the why it happens just the what tool was used.
You have a higher chance of getting killed by bees or lightning than dying from a “mass shooting”
(Lightning is at the bottom right there.)
Excluding all the car-on-pedestrian deaths would be like excluding all the gunman-on-unarmed deaths, lol.
Gun violence archive is not a legit source. It's completely bullshit from an anti-2a group. It's been called out multiple times by even left leaning sources like NPR and motherjones its so bad.
It’s been called out multiple times by even left leaning sources like NPR and motherjones its so bad.
Ok, here's Motherjones guide to mass shootings
Weapons: Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. They included dozens of assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines. (See charts below.) Just as a perpetrator used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did the one in Aurora, along with an AR-15 assault rifle, when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater. In Newtown, Connecticut, the attacker wielded a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle as he massacred 20 school children and six adults.
About eight-in-ten U.S. murders in 2021 – 20,958 out of 26,031, or 81% – involved a firearm.
The overall increase in U.S. gun deaths since the beginning of the pandemic includes an especially stark rise in such fatalities among children and teens under the age of 18. Gun deaths among children and teens rose 50% in just two years, from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021.
The rate of children dying to firearms in the US is 6.01 per 100,000
The rate of children dying to firearms in Canada is 0.21 per 100,000
In 2023, 754 people died in mass shootings in the USA.
In Canada, there have been 171 deaths to mass shootings for all of the 21st century so far.
We would have had to lose 83 people per year to shootings to keep up with you for 2023. We lost 11.
Ok, here's Motherjones guide to mass shootings
Weapons: Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. They included dozens of assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines. (See charts below.) Just as a perpetrator used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did the one in Aurora, along with an AR-15 assault rifle, when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater. In Newtown, Connecticut, the attacker wielded a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle as he massacred 20 school children and six adults.
Yea nothing here proves that the GVA isn't bullshit..
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/no-there-were-not-355-mass-shootings-this-year/
That's two left leaning anti-2a publishers who even call out the GVA. It's not a reputable source.
Or here's Pew Research: About eight-in-ten U.S. murders in 2021 – 20,958 out of 26,031, or 81% – involved a firearm.
The overall increase in U.S. gun deaths since the beginning of the pandemic includes an especially stark rise in such fatalities among children and teens under the age of 18. Gun deaths among children and teens rose 50% in just two years, from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021.
Yes the pandemic years where an outlier and has drastically dropped back to pre-pandemic levels and now furthering the trend of continued decrease in overall violence/crime. This stilll....once again, has nothing to do with the GVA being a shit source...
The rate of children dying to firearms in the US is 6.01 per 100,000
Yea during the pandemic... it's not anymore as I said, and further still not on topic.
The rate of children dying to firearms in Canada is 0.21 per 100,000
Same as above....
In 2023, 754 people died in mass shootings in the USA.
No they did not, the term mass shooting in the eyes of the public is like uvalde or LA...not gang violence or drug violence. People see mass shootings as random acts that target indiscriminately...this also once again bullshit.
In Canada, there have been 171 deaths to mass shootings for all of the 21st century so far. We would have had to lose 83 people per year to shootings to keep up with you for 2023. We lost 11.
O you're Canadian....why am I arguing this with you... you're not in the USA.
They're right though. All you have is "anti 2a" and "mass shooting doesn't mean what you think it means"
so you fold by arguing bullshit. Hey bright lights - guess what - easy gun availability in the US has an impact on canada!
No, I don't, through this entire thread I've got plenty of sources to back up what I'm saying. It's not my fault you don't wish to actually read them.
And https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/iefw-iefa-eng.html#_a3
That article acts like it's illegal to import firearms from the USA... it's not.
You have a higher chance of getting killed by bees or lightning than dying from a "mass shooting".
I’m glad you cleared your self-imposed goal posts.
EDIT: oh no! You didn’t! You were lying and hoping no one would notice! Nice job.
Most gun violence is gang related.
Sorry, couldn’t hear you over the sound of your dog whistle.
It's not the guns
It’s the guns.
Lol, hears gang and thinks minority.
You need to reassess how you think about people.
DARVO
Usually the ones trying to tell people they're racist are the most racist of them all. They think that because I point out the flaws in society that I must be white male, that's a gun owner who votes for trump... little do they know I am a minority who's heavily for societal safety nets, but also am armed to the teeth.
An armed minority is harder to oppress.
Not even worth my time for someone who is so ignorant to the subject. Have a good day.
Didn't ask for the help, thanks anyways.
I didn’t realize you spoke for all the idiots.
Makes sense.
They call me Emperor Idiot down at the gun range where I run a class for children. Thank you very much.