July Tournament

C1) SuicidesA) Gun StorageHarvard Injury Control Research Center analyzed a number of national random-digit dial telephone surveys and found that, “Many gun owners report storing their guns loaded and unlocked. Gun training is often associated with an increased likelihood of storing firearms in this manner.” And that, “Some 400 parents with firearms in the home responded to questions about firearms storage. Over 20% of parents had a loaded firearm and 8% stored at least one firearm loaded and unlocked. Households with teenagers were somewhat more likely to store firearms unsafely.”(http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...)In, “a national random telephone survey of 2,770 adults… of the 392 respondents who had at least one child and one firearm in the home, 22 percent had a loaded gun, 32 percent had an unlocked gun and 8 percent had a gun stored loaded and unlocked.”http://archive.sph.harvard.edu...“More than 1.6 million U.S. children live in homes with firearms that are stored loaded and unlocked. Because the guns used in youth suicides and unintentional injuries primarily come from victims’ homes, storage practices that allow for easy access to a firearm pose a threat to the safety of young people.”(http://archive.sph.harvard.edu...)Via the inability to store firearms properly; a teenager going through the extremely difficult time of adolescence has easy access to a weapon that they should not have. Whether that means that they bring it to school to show off to friends, to kill numerous classmates, or to kill themselves. Now while a substantial amount of teenagers wouldn’t take advantage of this easy access for harmful uses, the fact that any amount could is too many.This easy access to firearms poses many other problems as well. Anyone with a mental disability, or falsely identifying a friend/family as an intruder, or someone who is drunk, someone who is on drugs (not in their right mind), a marital fight, a toddler or young child mistaking it for a toy, etc. could all end in an unwanted death.This ease of access to firearms spawns more homicides, more suicides, more accidental shootings, and more deaths.B) Firearms & SuicideI.“Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and suicide across states, 1999-2001. States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm suicide and overall suicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups. It remained true after accounting for poverty, urbanization and unemployment…states with more guns had higher rates of suicide.” (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...) Owning a gun is a dangerous possession to have; you will actually be three times more likely to choose to commit suicide than someone who doesn’t own a gun. (http://www.thedailybeast.com...)II.“In 2010, 38,364 people killed themselves. In more than half of these cases, they used firearms. Indeed, more people in this country kill themselves with guns than with all other intentional means combined, including hanging, poisoning or overdose, jumping, or cutting. Though guns are not the most common method by which people attempt suicide, they are the most lethal. About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death.”(http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...)What we can draw from the evidence is two things:(1) Most suicides are done by firearms.(2) Suicide by firearm is the most lethal method as 85% end in death.Now while a ban on firearms will not decrease the amount of people that will commit suicide, it will save lives.Poison:For every successful suicide by poison, there are 42 attempted suicides by poison. That’s a 2.38% fatality rate.(http://lostallhope.com...)Cutting Wrists/Arms/Legs:A 6% fatality rate, for around every 17 attempts, only 1 succeeds.(http://lostallhope.com...)Overdose on Drugs:A 12.3% fatality rate, for every 8 attempts, only one succeeds.(http://lostallhope.com...)Hanging:75% fatality rate, for every 4 attempts, 3 succeed.(http://www.medscape.com...)If someone fails to commit suicide, they are rushed to a hospital where they are treated for their injuries. Then they are taken to get treatment to help their depression, this treatment works 80-90% of the time and the victim does not commit suicide again.(http://www.save.org...)“Most suicide attempts do not result in death. Many of these attempts are done in a way that makes rescue possible. These attempts are often a cry for help."(http://www.nlm.nih.gov...)Many people who commit suicide don’t actually want to die; they just want help with their problem. Having a suicide attempt less likely to be successful gives the victim the opportunity to seek help, fix their problem, and save their life. A ban on guns fixes this issue.C2) Firearm Accidents"In 2007, the United States suffered some 15,000-19,000 accidental shootings…American children under age 15 were nine times more likely to die of a gun accident than children in other advanced wealthy countries… About 200 Americans go to emergency rooms every day with gunshot wounds…”(http://www.thedailybeast.com...)Firearms are extremely deadly weapons; therefore extreme caution and responsibility are necessary when handling them. Despite the aggressive training required to get a license;“Take a 14-hour course (8 hours classroom, 6 hours range) in the carrying and use of firearms given by a Bureau- certified firearms training instructor at a Bureau certified training facility… Pass the written and range exams given at the end of the course”(http://www.bsis.ca.gov...)This goes to show that despite intensive training measures, gun accidents still occur.Firearm accidents are also much more likely to occur than other harmful accidents. For example, poison containers come with lids that are generally more difficult to remove and knives require very solid pressure in certain areas on the body to be fatal, all a gun requires is a pull of the trigger.Gun accidents are the worst kind of death; they are senseless, completely devoid of purpose. They leave the person who committed the act with a terrible sense of guilt that stays with them for the rest of their life.With gun accidents sending 200 people to the emergency room every day, and thousands of people with gunshot wounds every year, we have to realize that guns are not worth the risk.C3) HomicideA)“Handgun purchase was more common among persons dying from… or homicide (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.6 to 3.7), and particularly among those dying from… or gun homicide (OR 3.3; 95% CI 2.1 to 5.3), than among controls. No such differences were seen for non-gun suicide or homicide… Handgun purchasers accounted for less than 1% of the study population but 2.4% of gun homicides, 14.2% of gun suicides, and 16.7% of unintentional gun deaths.”The study concluded that; “Among adults who died in California in 1998, those dying from violence were more likely than those dying from non-injury causes to have purchased a handgun…legal purchase of a handgun appears to be associated with a long-lasting increased risk of violent death”(http://injuryprevention.bmj.com...)Evidence shows that the act of purchasing a handgun significantly increases your chances of a violent death. These statistics match what you would expect from a society where guns are legal. If someone is wielding a gun against an attacker who just wants to steal some items from their home, they are placing both themselves and the attacker at greater risk of death in the process.B)“Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention.”(http://usnews.nbcnews.com...)Of the 12, 765 murders in 2012; 8,855 of them were performed with guns. That’s 69.4% of all murders performed with a firearm.(http://www.infoplease.com...)If guns are banned, a murderer will have to use some other type of weapon that is less effective than a gun would be. A ban on guns would lower the effectiveness of murders and save the lives of murder victims.Conclusion:The United States should enact a nation-wide ban on all firearms to; reduce suicide rates, reduce deaths from accidents, and reduce homicide rates.