It may be arguing semantics, but arguing semantics is very important when it comes to this issue. This is because of the image that is conjured up in the average person's mind when you use the term "gun violence". That image being one of people intentionally shooting other people for malicious reasons. So by lumping all deaths caused by firearms under the category of "gun violence" it makes the problem of criminal activity involving firearms (the image that makes people think we need more gun regulation) seem much worse than it actually is.
It's certainly true that many (most?) people think crime is worse than it is, and that it's worse than it used to be. I don't have the inclination to Google it right now, but I'm pretty sure that violent crime rates are way down from, say, the '70s & '80s.
It also confuses more than just the gun issue. If you lump suicide-by-gun deaths into gun violence statistics in order to push for more gun regulation, you take attention away from the real issue of suicide prevention. Increased gun regulation isn't going to stop people from killing themselves. If someone wants to die, they are going to do it so we should be focusing on finding ways to make them not want to die rather than trying to limit the ways in which they can kill themselves.
I definitely agree that helping people who are at risk of suicide, and who have mental health concerns more generally, should be a bigger priority than it is, but the part here that I bolded is incorrect. Correlations have been found between gun ownership rates and suicide rates, and between looser gun laws and suicide rates. Of course "correlation is not causation", but it seems unlikely to me that people who own guns also happen to be innately more suicidal. Also, most people who survive a suicide attempt don't try again (that number is overwhelming, btw - 70% is the
lowest estimate I've seen, up to 90%). Guns and suicides appear to be inextricably linked. And while I keep talking about deaths, nonfatal gunshot wounds can be life-wrecking. That girl who just had that full-face transplant is, iirc, a suicide survivor.
And no one really disagrees with that. All we disagree on is what should be done. Obviously I do not believe "take the guns" is the correct answer.
Yeah, I'm not sure it is, either. I wonder how practical it is, for starters. But I also just don't like the idea of stormtroopers forcing people's doors in because of what they might do. That's how Fred Hampton was essentially executed by Chicago P.D. in 1969.
That must means the methods are so varied and divers that they account for 8% together but no one method was common enough to be 1% by itself.
