The Glade 4.0

So they're depressed because people think their depression is laziness?



/facepalm

Were you aiming for absurdity? Because you sure as hell managed to get there.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

The amount of bigotry in this post is phenomenal.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Um, no. Not at all. For one, availability of firearms does correlate with increased suicide (in the US).

Also, the existence of confounding variables doesn't mean the variable we're looking at (firearm accessibility) is not a cause. It just means you have to account for those confounding variables in your study. Which has been done.



That's a pretty damn strong correlation. And I think the fact that the non-firearm suicide rate is the same is pretty telling. But there are lots of differences between people who live in those rural, low population states versus people living in the northeast. Maybe is another factor, a confounding variable, that is at work here. But what is it? Those who study this kind of thing have looked into it, and found that those in more rural areas like those 15 "high-gun" states have the rates of depression, the same rates of suicidal thoughts, and the same rates of mental illness. And again, they have the same rate of non-firearm suicide. The one major difference is how many of them kill themselves with firearms.

So what's this magical confounding variable that explains this huge gap in the firearm suicide rate? I'm all ears...

So suicide is not a mental condition?

_________________

Well, not as such.

Then again, firearm suicide is all in your head.

...

Holy ****, that was dark.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Or is the argument that firearms are depressants?

_________________

I don't think the government should be involved when it comes to people's personal rights, which includes suicide.

They have absolutely zero problems with people's rights to kill themselves with cigarettes (which I am also for, since that's also a personal right). The only time govt should be actively against someone's right to off themselves is with incarceration for a crime that the accused has not answered for.

So, to me, using the argument to ban firearms because it will lessen suicide rates is weak at best, hypocritical at worst.

_________________
Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I hate to break it to you, but this was pretty much entirely debunked in the article in the OP. No, it doesn't correlate. Yes, I read the entire 46 pages of it.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Unless you don't get your whole face in front of the shotgun.

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

Not 100%. A small percentage of people shoot themselves in the chest, so as not to ruin the head for the funeral. One NFL player did that so his brain could be analyzed for the brain injury boxers get. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/sports/football/21duerson.html?_r=0

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I don't know about suicides, but murder rates are much lower in countries where guns are prohibited.

Is that enough reason to ban them? I don't know, but I am glad guns are not allowed here.

_________________
Egan Mac Aodhagáin
Human (redhead) Ranger (Witchguard, Skirmisher), Init +2, HP 9/17, Speed 20 ft
AC 18, Touch 12, Flat-footed 16, Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +2
Greatsword +5 (2d6+4, 19-20/x2)
Composite Longbow +4 +3 (1d8+3, x3)
Abilities Str 17, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10

Murder rates are not necessarily lower in countries where guns are banned. That is not the case in Britain, nor in the many eastern European countries the study posted in the OP discusses. Eastern Europe has systematically been avoided in discussions of the "developed world", earlier on due to the avoidance of allowing negative information to get out by the former Communist regimes there, and the desire of western liberals to avoid criticizing socialist systems, and later simply to avoid introducing data that would call into question the idea that Americans have guns and therefore lots of murder, while Europe is a gun-free paradise that enjoys universally low murder and other rates of violence.

In point of fact, the countries in Europe that enjoy low murder rates don't universally have strict gun control. Finland and Switzerland are prime examples, and both France and Germany are less restrictive than Britain which has higher rates of violence than either. In the U.S., gun control has generally weakened, with concealed carry becoming more and more common in the last 2 decades, but rates of murder and violence are down from the 70s and 80s.

Murder and violence result from other social issues than the availability of guns. The U.S. is a larger country with different prevailing social situations in different parts of it, and a national social policy is pretty much never a good idea here on any issue. Every attempt to create one results in colossal silliness (assault weapons ban, thankfully repealed) or equally colossal wastes of money (education system) or both (Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac). Americans, however, have enough experience with widely available firearms to know that the safety people living in restrictive countries feel is an illusion created from simply assuming that guns = murder and violence. There is no causal relationship there.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Switzerland has the lowest murder rate in all of Europe, and they not only allow guns, but every adult male MUST own and maintain two of them, and many women, do too. They have no standing army, the citizenry is all a militia.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It is also worth noting that the United States sees wider cultural diversity than any other country in the world. It is tempting to think of all French people as being French, all Swiss as Swiss, and all British as British, but anyone who lives in those countries knows that to be folly.

The United States is huge. People forget that. Individual states are the size of European countries, and most of them are separated from each other by greater distances. People from New York, Texas, and California are as different from each other as the French, Swiss, and British people discussed in the previous paragraph.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Yea,

You might want to check with the folks in Alaska before deciding to ban firearms.

You pretty much have to carry one if you are anywhere outside of the most populated areas, and even then, it's still a pretty good idea.

The probably extends outside of Alaska as well to several of the other western states in the lower 48.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

you have no clue how to human do you?

_________________
Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

He doesn't have a **** clue!

_________________
"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Ran across this today. Seemed germane.

http://blog.lifeway.com/newsroom/2013/0 ... l-illness/

Most striking:

That a significant percentage of Americans thinks prayer fixes physical and mental disorders is a known quantity in modern science and medicine. That chart is actually disingenuous and unkind to Christians, because it treats the fruitcakes that believe healing crystals can cure XYZ ailment as being somehow different.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

Thank you Coro, I think. Personally the qualifier of "Alone" is a sticky wicket. I'm not limiting God, but I feel that anyone who is relying solely on prayer is potentially denying himself of God's provision as much as the person who relies solely on a pill, even one prescribed by a doctor, for their happiness. Its like that old joke where the guy passes up the boat and the helicopter to get off the deserted island because he's expecting God to save him then when he dies he meets God and He's Like "I sent you a boat and a helicopter." Sure God is able to do something, but part of that something is sometimes imparted through through wisdom and insight of doctors when we ask Him.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

The survey was done by a Christian organization (one of the largest in the world). I doubt their intention is to paint a negative picture of Christians; more that they were specifically interested in getting the numbers specifically from Christians regarding the matter.

Their intentions are irrelevant. According to the poll, half of all Christians are complete idiots, compared to a third of the general population. By treating belief in healing crystals, chi flows, special alignment of stars, etc. as fundamentally different from belief in prayer-based healing, the general population had the bar set much lower, making the final results unfair to Christians.

I feel it's important, in the name of good science, to point out that there are other forms of quackery being ignored by this poll. Christians may compare much more favorably to the general population than this poll indicates. It is possible, and indeed likely, that half of the general population are also complete idiots.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.