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Fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides

news.yahoo.com — The Supreme Court's landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens' ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves. Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005...

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 1, 2008

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  • WiseWeasel, on 06/30/2008, -24/+228So, what's the problem? This is good news, as it means that 55% of gun-related deaths in 2005 were not homicides, but merely suicides, which would surely have been carried out in some other way if guns were unavailable for whatever reason. If someone wants to commit suicide, that's not my problem; and in any case, we're not going to fix it by taking their guns away.
  • GOVStooge, on 07/01/2008, -5/+150FACT: 100% of suicides are self inflicted.
  • aschmack, on 07/01/2008, -5/+80Fact: Bears eat beets.
  • XxtraLarGe, on 07/01/2008, -3/+55"Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they were pushed out of a window?" Archie Bunker responding to his daughter Gloria on the number of gun deaths each year.
  • DearSergio, on 07/01/2008, -8/+48I agree. At the same time, those people who would give a .44 a blowjob are going to find some other way to kill themselves. Seems morbid but it's better than 31,000 people falling onto hoods of cars all across America because they couldn't shoot themselves, so they jumped out of their windows.
  • yayster, on 07/01/2008, -1/+29I think it is.
  • SwedishNinja, on 07/01/2008, -7/+34We should make suicide illegal!
  • knucklebusted, on 07/01/2008, -28/+54People that want to kill themselves use a gun. People that want attention by pretending to kill themselves use drugs.
  • amra51, on 07/01/2008, -2/+27Yea, what figures do you have for percentages of crimes that were averted due to gun deterrence - either by showing a gun and NOT shooting or because of the risk of someone being armed? Do those show up in your 2%? I don't think so.
  • nomad421, on 07/01/2008, -9/+35The blurb attached to this post is such an absurd statement. Is the implication that we could prevent many suicides if only guns were outlawed? Perhaps the poster doesn't realize that there are a plethora of alternative ways by which one may commit suicide. This fact is completely orthogonal to the supreme court ruling, and only a fool would try to draw a link.
  • inactive, on 07/01/2008, -5/+29FACT: 98% of all people will die in their lifetime.
  • kinerry, on 07/01/2008, -8/+31Fact: gun ownership isn't about self-defense or even hunting, it's about protecting yourself from a tyrannical government

    Zimbabwe sure as hell wouldn't be in the situation it's in now if regular citizens were able to keep the government in check
  • kinerry, on 07/01/2008, -2/+24Bear, beats, battlestar galactica
  • Nidy1, on 07/01/2008, -5/+28Why are we trying to prevent people from killing themselves? That's THEIR choice. Their body is THEIR property.
  • trogdor282, on 07/01/2008, -4/+25Otherwise known as 'freedom'
  • shadeOfGrey, on 07/01/2008, -1/+21My gun will only be used for that 2% 100% of the time.
  • krnldmp, on 07/01/2008, -1/+20Forcing 15,000 people who want to kill themselves to stay alive is going ***** things up WAY worse than letting them do it.
  • sneedo, on 07/01/2008, -3/+22Fact: Digg's dupe checker failed on this one, or someone is a Mrbabyman fan.
  • aliengoods, on 07/01/2008, -1/+19Columbine? Any society that makes laws to account for the 1 out of 1 million wackjobs on the street has lost it's way.

    You can get shot, you can die in a car accident, you can have a piano fall on your head. There are many ways to die, and we can't prevent them all, nor should we try.
  • ender7074, on 07/01/2008, -1/+19I have many guns yet I manage to live in peace. Take that ***** somewhere else.
  • kuantan97, on 07/01/2008, -4/+22Actually, I'd say that much of the garbage tend to hang on till the bitter end.

    The good die young.
  • ultraJesus, on 07/01/2008, -4/+22Buried for being on the front page yesterday.
  • openj, on 07/01/2008, -9/+26Suicide has nothing to do with the instrument. Next you're all going to be vilifying the spoon because 50% of households with that particular eating utensil have obese people living in them. Then it will get to Congress, who will pass a law mandating sporks in place of spoons and guns both, which will of course lead to a gargantuan rise in the number of spork-related homicides and suicides alike. You'll all be back here in five years wondering how you got to that point, never seeming to credit the uptick in sporking to your own irrational fear of guns, which by their very existence allow for such things as suicide, and spoons, which of course are the root cause of all obesity on the planet.

    F'ing idiots. What's the purpose of free will if you're all going to waste it on stupidity contests?
  • inactive, on 07/01/2008, -0/+17That's a great idea, however, how are you going to make people go to the doctor? Just because someone has mental illness doesn't mean they'll seek treatment, regardless of national health care coverage.
  • bfisch1983, on 07/01/2008, -1/+17I started taking martial arts 15 years ago to learn how to defend myself. I have used %0 of my skill to actually defend myself in a fight, that doesn't mean it's worthless.
  • wtbuser, on 07/01/2008, -3/+19Which is far more desirable than the "intervene on everyone's behalf every time" society.
  • inactive, on 07/01/2008, -1/+17Fact: Half of Digg posts are dupes.
  • fLUx1337, on 07/01/2008, -6/+22Proof?
  • inactive, on 07/01/2008, -7/+23Guns don't kill themselves. People kill themselves.
  • moonboots, on 07/01/2008, -11/+27Someone who wants to commit suicide will find some other way if guns were banned, so why does this fact affect the legitimacy of gun ownership?
  • amra51, on 07/01/2008, -5/+19The "neocons" probably wont be the ones coming to take your guns, to prevent you from shooting yourself. It will likely one of the elitist socialist liberal types...who are there to "save you" from yourself.
  • kevman459, on 07/01/2008, -3/+17The other half? Regicide.
  • inactive, on 07/01/2008, -1/+15It is.
  • johndavidjack, on 07/01/2008, -2/+16Thank you.

    Don't punish all of the law abiding and responsible gun owners because some people can't handle the pressures of life, or obey other laws.
  • Butros, on 07/01/2008, -1/+15This is called personal responsibility, it's a side effect of freedom. I'm sorry your parents didn't teach you this.
  • VitaminA, on 07/01/2008, -2/+16The majority of gun owners do not use guns to kill people. Many gun owners are hunters and some are collectors. Some people have guns in their house for defense that are never used but are still serving their purpose, to give the owner a sense of security in an increasingly more dangerous world. Your analogy is incorrect.
  • Sverre, on 07/01/2008, -7/+21The problem is that if you try to kill yourself with a gun, you are extremely likely to succeed. That is not the case with most other methods. The problem is that suicidal thoughts can hit anyone when they are down, and they are also a typical side effect of certain medical drugs. If you don't have a gun, you are unlikely to kill yourself when you go through that, but if you have access to a gun, it is very easy to end your life right there and then.
  • D1Foley, on 07/01/2008, -3/+16Tell that to the soilders with PTSD who killed themselves *****
  • cawpin, on 07/01/2008, -0/+13In most states in the US, attempted suicide is illegal but a successful suicide is not, for obvious reasons. Suicide is the only act that it is illegal to attempt but not illegal to commit.
  • MWeather, on 07/01/2008, -0/+13"Having said that, heart disease kills many more people than gun crime."

    Then obviously we should ban McDonalds before worrying about guns.
  • ordig, on 07/01/2008, -0/+13cop
  • gavin422, on 07/01/2008, -0/+12What about Marilyn Monroe's?
  • Jeremyz0r, on 07/01/2008, -6/+18Old, saw this yesterday.

    http://digg.com/world_news/55_of_all_U_S_Gun_Death ...
  • inactive, on 07/01/2008, -2/+14Yeah, what about the family that's left behind? If you're going to kill yourself, it seems like the only polite thing to do is kill your family first.
  • FatAmerican, on 07/01/2008, -1/+12Death Penalty.
  • AnarkeIncarnate, on 07/01/2008, -0/+11@Frost9999,

    The gun was the tool. If they put rocks in their pockets and walked into a river would you outlaw water?
  • NeilieN, on 07/01/2008, -0/+11You are assuming the optimal use of the gun is a lawful legal killing. You are ignoring the use of a gun as a crime deterrent without fatality. I obviously do not have these numbers, but they would need to be taken into account as well.
  • AnarkeIncarnate, on 07/01/2008, -1/+12The problem is not health care. We have a problem with bureaucracy. Having a governmental health care system will increase that inordinately. Could you imagine health care run like a DMV?

    Also, your statement about removing firearms reducing the death from suicide is just garbage. Instead of gun related suicides we'd have more hangings, pill taking and wrist slashing.
  • OrangeTide, on 07/01/2008, -0/+11+/- 2% margin of error.
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