God damned crazy motherfuckers.

[fatbuckRTO]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

You haven't heard people refer to their firearms as their 'tools' or 'toys'? You haven't heard people refer to their guns in a way that makes you think that you could easily substitute the word 'toy'? I've heard both, from far too many people, and on far too many occasions. Not just in the US, while primarily there, but also less often in Canada where we have the sort of controls, some of which I: would recommend for your people.

I have heard that. I thought you meant in media / news. I do hear 'toys' and similar words used by individual people describing their weapons, usually when they are collectors. Personally, I was trained to call a firearm a 'weapon' or refer to it by it's type (rifle, pistol). But, while it goes against my grain to call a hand-held firearm by even a word like 'gun,'* I don't see it as a major issue. Usually when I hear 'toys' or the like, I understand it to be a tongue-in-cheek reference. I don't consider a motorcycle or car a toy either. They'll kill you quick.

But while I don't see terminology as being a major issue itself, I agree with you that lack of respect for firearms is a huge issue. The 4 safety rules should be taught along with phonics, in my opinion. There are too many firearms out there to just assume that a child will go his whole life without encountering one.

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

Once again, you're thinking on the wrong end of the equation. You're talking about what happens after the fact. I'm talking about trying to prevent the incident in the first place. From that point of view, mindset has a massive effect.

You're also minimizing the issue by making another invalid comparison; vehicular deaths to firearms deaths. In the United States there are roughly enough firearms to put one in the hands of every citizen over the age of 16 (rough estimate, based on the approximation that there are about 200,000 privately owned firearms in the US). Given that the majority of gun owners have more than one weapon, and that they are unlikely to all be taken out on a daily basis for their intended purpose, they are relatively unlikely to be involved in an incident. And yet they are.

On the flip-side of that you have road- going vehicles, the majority of which are used on a daily basis for their intended purpose. For this reason they are more likely to be involved in incidents resulting in death. Want a more valid comparison? Compare the number of wilful deaths resulting from both things and yes, a suicide is a wilful death.

I don't think that the difference in saturation or per capita numbers makes the comparison invalid. Deaths are deaths. If one type of death is worth risk management, all types of death are worth risk management. You say that you want to prevent the incident in the first place, so I don't understand why you wouldn't want to prevent automobile fatalities as much as you want to prevent firearm fatalities. My intent isn't to minimize the moral implications of firearm fatalities, but to realize that automobile fatalities are just as tragic. In my opinion, they are comparable in that there are identical measures we could take to reduce fatalities for both, but we have not taken those measures.

I differentiate firearm suicides because I believe that, if a person is serious enough to shoot himself to death, he is serious enough to find another method of suicide if a firearm is not available to him. I don't believe reducing the number of firearms in circulation will have any measurable effect on suicide rates.

We'll probably end up having to agree to disagree here. That said, I appreciate you actually addressing the argument, vice summarily dismissing it as "childish" like some others have done.





* I will call a weapon a 'gun' for brevity, depending on my audience, but it's something akin to running my fingernails down a chalkboard. Old habits, and what...