US Philadelphia Student Carrying Legal Firearm Shoots It Out

[Svartalf]

suicide by fish and chips?

[amok]

I don't know. I personally think it has more to do with crowding, and people being irate and short-tempered because of that.

Where I live, we have (as far as I know), relatively similar gun-control laws as in the U.K., but also have relatively low gun crime AND other violent crime.

Got a high suicide rate though.

We do? I'll have to look that up.

Hm. No, what I see from the stats is that Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. aren't significantly different, when it comes to suicide rates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

I was quite surprised and disturbed by the gender divide, though. What's that all about?

[MrJonno]

Suicide rate stats are pretty suspect anyway with a general reluctance for many coroners (if their is an enquiry) to give suicide as a cause of death to avoid upseting the family.

Its pretty obvious if you put a gun to your head and pull the trigger you want to die but if you overdose it could well be a cry for help and someone dying from that could as easily count as misadventure rather than suicide

[Gallstones]

I don't know. I personally think it has more to do with crowding, and people being irate and short-tempered because of that.

Where I live, we have (as far as I know), relatively similar gun-control laws as in the U.K., but also have relatively low gun crime AND other violent crime.

Got a high suicide rate though.

Wait a minute...Bzzzzzzzzztt!
Where is this high suicide rate?

[Gallstones]

I don't know. I personally think it has more to do with crowding, and people being irate and short-tempered because of that.

Where I live, we have (as far as I know), relatively similar gun-control laws as in the U.K., but also have relatively low gun crime AND other violent crime.

Got a high suicide rate though.

We do? I'll have to look that up.

Hm. No, what I see from the stats is that Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. aren't significantly different, when it comes to suicide rates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... cide_rate/

I was quite surprised and disturbed by the gender divide, though. What's that all about?

I don't like that link amok. It doesn't take me anywhere.

What gender divide?

[Robert_S]

Need to chop off the last "/". if only there were a mod...

[mistermack]

That Wiki article looks like it's been tampered with.
The figures fall, and then rise in the middle. But if it's right, I agree that Canada doesn't have a particularly high rate any more. It was known for it years ago. When I was there it was quite a topic of conversation, especially Vancouver.

The difference between the sexes is pretty amazing. Slovakia is extreme. Men ten times that of women.
I agree it might be to do with reporting, and the different way the sexes go about it.

It's easy to put down accidental overdose, but harder to put down accidental gun in the mouth.

[Seth]

Who cares about suicide? It's a person's civil right to commit suicide, and it's just as important that they have a convenient and effective method of doing so. To deny a person the right to kill themselves when their lives become intolerable is to enslave them to the needs and desires of others. Suicide is the ultimate expression of individual liberty, and must be preserved as such. You cannot be made a slave if you have the means, if all else fails, to kill yourself.

Suicide statistics can't begin to be used as a justification for banning guns because people intent on suicide will find some other method, including throwing themselves in front of trains or off highway bridges.

This is a nonsense argument.

[MrJonno]

Who cares about suicide? It's a person's civil right to commit suicide, and it's just as important that they have a convenient and effective method of doing so. To deny a person the right to kill themselves when their lives become intolerable is to enslave them to the needs and desires of others. Suicide is the ultimate expression of individual liberty, and must be preserved as such. You cannot be made a slave if you have the means, if all else fails, to kill yourself.

Suicide statistics can't begin to be used as a justification for banning guns because people intent on suicide will find some other method, including throwing themselves in front of trains or off highway bridges.

This is a nonsense argument.

Personal liberty hmm , try a sympton of serious mental illness. Sure for a few its a rational decision (terminal physicall illness with a large amount of pain) but for most people who survive its something they regret and are glad they didnt succeed.

[Seth]

Who cares about suicide? It's a person's civil right to commit suicide, and it's just as important that they have a convenient and effective method of doing so. To deny a person the right to kill themselves when their lives become intolerable is to enslave them to the needs and desires of others. Suicide is the ultimate expression of individual liberty, and must be preserved as such. You cannot be made a slave if you have the means, if all else fails, to kill yourself.

Suicide statistics can't begin to be used as a justification for banning guns because people intent on suicide will find some other method, including throwing themselves in front of trains or off highway bridges.

This is a nonsense argument.

Personal liberty hmm , try a sympton of serious mental illness. Sure for a few its a rational decision (terminal physicall illness with a large amount of pain) but for most people who survive its something they regret and are glad they didnt succeed.

So what if they do? Many more succeed and are probably glad they did. "Serious mental illness" is a tautological definition when it comes to suicide because the mental health community defines anyone who has suicidal ideology as mentally ill. Problem is, it may not be mental illness at all, it may be perfectly rational depression and a decision to end an unbearable life.

It may be that their life is not really that unbearable, but it's not up to you or I, or anyone else, to forcibly intervene in the free choices of others as regards their decision to end their lives. One may certainly counsel and advise, but in the end the decision is up to the individual and must be respected. It's their life.

One of the most egregious abuses of individual liberty comes when some nitwit says "but think of your family, they (or I) will miss you and be hurt if you die." How grossly selfish and manipulated, as if the other person is obliged to continue to suffer unbearable pain and sorrow just to suit the emotional needs of others.

Yes, suicide is the most essential and important exercise of one's natural, unalienable rights and the law should respect this, but it doesn't. Anti-suicide laws originated in the concept that the individual does not own himself, but rather he is a vassal of the king or a subject of the government and cannot be allowed to escape his or her duty to the king or the government, to the economic and social detriment of the society, by committing suicide. It's just another form of societal slavery.

Only when any adult can go into a pharmacy and obtain a killing drug on demand will we truly be free.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Interesting, 'Zilla. Esp the bit about not darting them.

We don't talk to them, give them man-made things as toys or treats, etc. We had a female shot in Phoenix earlier in the year, she was inside the city limits for some damn reason. Given the "see wolf, kill wolf" mentality of some folks the farther from humans they want to be, the better.

Wolf kills are investigated, and if we catch the poacher we prosecute them.

Sad thing that they have to be investigated at all.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I find it funny how we instantly recognize wild wolves, where they could theoretically be mistaken for some breed of dog... but feral dogs rarely get shot, unless they manage to get real obnoxious first.

I've seen a dozen feral dogs shot in a single day. In Indiana.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We had an out of stater here a few years ago bring in his harvest to a local butcher--he had shot a llama and thought it was an elk.

How did you get llamas in the wild in Montana?

Hutterite llamas.
Livestock is pastured on leased public lands.
Many ranches include wilderness.

Llamas are being included in cattle herds, because they really hate wolves and will patrol their herd and make life difficult for wolves. The wolves avoid herds with llamas, donkeys or people around.

[Svartalf]

People are in the same category as donkeys and spitting llamas? yeah, more misanthropy fodder there.

[Svartalf]

I find it funny how we instantly recognize wild wolves, where they could theoretically be mistaken for some breed of dog... but feral dogs rarely get shot, unless they manage to get real obnoxious first.

I've seen a dozen feral dogs shot in a single day. In Indiana.

'cause they were bothering livestock? or because you were with a guy who had a serious case of animal cruelty?