Well, I tend to come more from emotion and hunches than statistics, so I should be easy to knock down lol, but
.
If I take a notion today to dye my hair blue and copy Marge Simpsons do but there is no blue dye in my house, the probability that I will be doing this today goes way down. I might think of asking my friends if they have Marge dye; I might think of stealing some from my neighbors; I might think of trying to buy some blue dye online or in some store. But because its a whim or impulsive action on my part, if there is little to no supply that readily lines up with my demand, the moment might, just might, pass and my hair will remain purple.
If I get the urge to take my own life tonight, which thankfully I wont, lets say the idea of a gun appeals to me for that because its quick and easy. But if I have no gun and I cant easily beg, borrow, or steal one, theres a chance I just may live to see another day. We cant put something to use that we do not have.
People will find another way to kill themselves, you say?
Here is someone who was willing to try a method of suicide that did not involve a firearm. She was alive when I got home. I once had a young woman houseguest make a suicide attempt while I was out. There was no gun on the property so killing herself with a firearm was not an option. She looked in my medicine cabinet to see what could be found. Nothing really, so she downed a bottle of Advil. A trip to the emergency room for a stomach pumping, and fifteen years later she is happily married with three beautiful girls. I shudder to think how that scenario might have played out had I had some weapons around that I felt no need to secure because my houseguest was an adult.
To me it stands to reason that there would be fewer suicides with fewer guns circulating. A gun is often a preferred instrument for taking ones life because it provides the possibility of a simple, instantaneous, and efficient exit. The idea of slowly bleeding to death from slit wrists, for example, or gasping through a hanging death, or lying there waiting for pills to take hold, or summoning up the nerve to jump from a bridge could be unappealing enough that a person with no gun might find himself/herself still here, after all, to witness more sunrises. Not always, but sometimes the moment passes and the urge with it. You have a little bit of time to remember you have kids, or you sober up, or you call somebody and say you just scared yourself. But if there is a firearm in the armoire, and in one split second all troubles can be wiped away once and for all, how tempting is that?
To me it stands to reason that there would also be fewer murders with fewer guns circulating. Murderous rages, love triangles, domestic situations, sour business deals
..isnt it easier to let a bullet do the work from a distance (think of the power-you are an annihilator) rather than to come within reach of another and have to deal with whatever defense is launched as you stab or bonk with a ball bat or try to throw your victim off a cliff? If the Sandy Hook perpetrator had come in with a knife, do we not suspect that an elementary building full of educators could have gained control of that knife somewhere shy of 26 innocents being slaughtered? Yeah, an armed teacher maybe could have taken care of everything in even shorter order. But when I stack up the odds of a gun being useful as self-defense against the possibility of the gun seeing criminal use or impulsive destructive use against self or others, I say no, thanks. You can say yes in the U.S.
The day that Sandy Hook occurred I thought, well, we finally know what it takes to generate more comprehensive firearms restrictions. A roomful of dead kids. Such a shame that it took that. What? Sales of high-powered automatic weapons and other weapons skyrocketed? In my view, a mentality that says give me more of what took the children out that day is a mentality that is very hard to deal with.
