- Joined
- Oct 15, 2017
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- 6,768
Secondly, let’s not delude ourselves about the association between guns and mass shootings, or pretend these things happen in other countries to the extent they do here. We are an outlier, plain and simple https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.amp.html
That New York Times article refers to "A 2015 study estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues." If you follow that link, it tells you that while most mentally-ill people are "never violent" that "mental illness is strongly associated with increased risk of suicide, which accounts for over half of US firearms-related fatalities." Maybe the government doesn't consider it violent if you shoot yourself, but I have seen it happen before. I can tell you that it's pretty violent. Also, it is not lost on me that the New York Times says that the amount of mental health associated deaths attributable to gun use is 4%, whereas the actual study by the U.S. Government says 50% of them are due to suicide. Suicide is caused by a mental health issue. Nobody who is mentally healthy, chooses to cancel their own ticket with a gun.
To add to that, many of these shooters end up getting the order wrong. What I mean is that instead of offing themselves first, they kill a bunch of strangers, then kill themselves. No matter the order, those deaths (of the shooters) still go into the suicide column.
You can do what you like with the facts. But please, don’t pretend they aren’t facts
I like facts. I read facts all the time. I try not to pretend that misreported, massaged, cherry-picked, or made-up facts are correct.