guns, Guns, GUNS!

[JuliaL]

They will kill, hurt or maim at lower rates if an efficient tool is not at hand.

Deaths may go down but maiming will go up.

Unsupported assertion. Also assumes that the increase in deaths is to be preferred to an increase in maiming.

If it were the case that violence would be carried out by other means if guns weren't available, then the rates of violent death would be the same in households with or without guns (controlling for other factors such as not being a meth addict).

That is only assuming those who shy away from gun ownership have the same tendency towards conflict as someone who wants to own a gun.

What part of "controlling for other factors" don't you understand?

Again guns are tools much like a hammer. Hammers can be used to build or to destroy it all depends on the intention of the person who holds the hammer. People who typically buy hammers tend to be builders. Now what if there were no hammers would those very same people stop building or simply find another way to complete their task?

Sure, and if there were no cars, people would still travel. Just by oxcart and horse and much slower. He who lives by the analogy...

Of the 31000 gun deaths in the US, roughly 62% are suicides.

Perfect example, of a person using a tool to complete a goal he/she wants to complete.

The second most likely person you will kill with your gun is a close family member.

ah, no. That kind of stupid statement can only be made by someone who only looks at one specific aspect of a statistic and ignores everything else.
Circumstance is the only other factor in the death of a family member, outside murder.

Remove the opportunity for circumstance, and that only leaves murder. So unless I want a close family member dead it will not happen. That is how it works in the real world.

The circumstance in question in the studies cited is the availability of a gun.
It is the increased immediacy and lethality of the tool which directly impacts the presumably undesired outcome, the death of a close family member.

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_index...=5&e=28649
It is important to understand, according to the study, that the higher rates of suicide among those who own guns has to do with the fact that guns are much more lethal than other methods of attempting suicide.
...
A large number of those who commit suicide by gun shot are adolescents. Teenagers tend to be more emotional, depressed, anxious and impulsive than most adult members of society. When you add to that the fact that teens abuse alcohol and drugs, adding to their depression and emotionality, the availability of a gun makes them extremely vulnerable to a successful suicide attempt.

Are you still under the misapprehension that I disapprove of your gun ownership? By keeping a gun, you are only very slightly increasing the likelihood of someone I care about dying by violence and greatly increasing the similar likelihood in your own circle of loved ones. I strongly support this situation and only wish you'd get on with it. Particularly with respect to any pre-reproductive age offspring you may have.