More suicide than murders by gun

Ross Douthat, as is his manner, brings sense and clarity to an issue by focusing on something other than the two extremes of the gun issue.  I admit, I don't really have a dog in this fight, apart from the sneaking suspicion that there are those exploiting the horrible massacre at Newtown in order to advance agendas bent on eliminating this pesky freedom stuff.  Still, not having done the homework myself, I'm reluctant to throw out too many opinions.  I have no doubt there are bad apples and extremists on both sides of the debate, as there always are.

Still, I'm a bit shocked to see some things unfolding.  Ever since 9/11, and during the hellstorm debate over the Patriot Act and water boarding  I saw and read time and again, over and over, the arguments against allowing torture.  Time and again Jefferson and Ben Franklin were quoted to remind us how stupid is a country willing to compromise its liberty for safety.  And now, some of those who dropped those quotes, are saying we must be willing to give away parts of our liberty for preventing such horrible things as Sandy Hook.  That's something I'm going to reflect on for later.

My concern is that all of these gun control measures will, in fact, do nothing at all, but take us one baby step closer to being at ease with seeing [anyone else's] freedoms compromised.  The fact that I don't own an assault weapon doesn't mean I don't care about the rights to own one.  While I would be willing to look at what rules and regulations exist, I'm worried that the progressive juggernaut is gaining steam when it comes to intruding ever more into our lives.  Thinking that they will only intrude into their lives but not mine would be the height of idiocy.

Especially if these intrusions don't actually help the problem we're all clamoring to resolve.  So Mr. Douthat, always wonderful in his insights, reminds us that it might be that suicide, not murder, is the number one cause of gun death to be helped by such measures. The laws could possibly help there more than the murders, which are usually perpetrated by criminals with no intention of following laws anyway.  It's an interesting read.  Kudos to the fellow who provided the link, as well as this interesting stat from Justice Breyer’s dissent in District of Columbia v. Heller:

“From 1993 to 1997, there were 180,533 firearm-related deaths in the United States, an average of over 36,000 per year… Fifty-one percent were suicides, 44% were homicides, 1% were legal interventions, 3% were unintentional accidents, and 1% were of undetermined causes.”