Dear Americans: What's the leading cause of death among the young?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Diggin' the Frazetta av, SB.

I have always been a Molly Hatchet fan.

I'm not a big fan of their stuff -- though they had moments of rippingdom, guitarwise -- but I had that debut cover on my wall as a pimply teen.

FwD has a solo that was a big influence on my playing style, though.

[Strongbad]

Nope, I don't have any facts. That's why I qualified my statement by saying "I don't have any sources other than personal experiences". I didn't say most gun owners have a 'cache', I said most Christian gun owners - that I know - have a cache of weapons. It is my opinion that religious people are more inclined to own guns; you are free to disagree with me.

I don't think that you'd be able to determine something like that (even as an opinion) - even from your own experiences. You have to tip the hat the the fact that the demographics skew towards religious people, so seeing alot of them doing something wouldn't be a very good indicator of what the group is inclined towards, particularly relative to another group.

Let's say you knew three non-religious people, and only one owned a gun. Lets says you knew thirty religious people, and nine owned a gun. Which group, going by these numbers, is "more inclined" to own a gun?

Meh...I'll admit that my view may be skewed, because just about everyone I know is Christian, and they all own guns, and most of them, lots of guns. I'll still say that religious people are inclined towards gun ownership, maybe with a little too much enthusiasm.

---

I have always been a Molly Hatchet fan.

I'm not a big fan of their stuff -- though they had moments of rippingdom, guitarwise -- but I had that debut cover on my wall as a pimply teen.

FwD has a solo that was a big influence on my playing style, though.

Southern rock, in general, has been a large influence on my playing style. From Skynyrd, to the Outlaws, Blackfoot, Hatchet, CDB, Tucker, Allmans, I loved them all, and took a little from each.

[Aractus]

Hmm FBI keeps publishing violent crime on the decline in USA.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats

http://www.statista.com/statistics/19121...ince-1990/

Guess they are wrong.

No one is saying that violent crimes are not on the decline in the USA. All I pointed out was that violence in the USA is much much higher than in any other first-world country.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Southern rock, in general, has been a large influence on my playing style. From Skynyrd, to the Outlaws, Blackfoot, Hatchet, CDB, Tucker, Allmans, I loved them all, and took a little from each.

I'm not a big fan of the genre, except the Allmans, who are to my ears far larger than the genre itself, spanning, rock, blues, jazz, and country.

Duane's always gonna be top-5 for me, and a guiding light when playing slide.

[Silver]

I was under the impression that suicide was the number one cause of death among the young.

[The Valkyrie]

I was under the impression that suicide was the number one cause of death among the young.

I thought it was lack of life?

[Whateverist]

I was under the impression that suicide was the number one cause of death among the young.

I thought it was lack of life?

That would only be if we allowed abortion right up until they're legal for voting.

[Mister Agenda]

I was under the impression that suicide was the number one cause of death among the young.

I think it's accidents, followed by murders, followed by suicides. Too many young people being involved with gangs probably has a lot to do with the murder rate being higher than the suicide rate.

[The Grand Nudger]

Amusingly related. The majority of gun related deaths are suicides - so when you hear that gun violence is a problem that needs to be tackled with law after law, and it's backed up by how many gun related deaths there are in the US (and it's an appalling number)...it's good to keep that in mind and realize that at some level, you're being sold a bill of goods (because they're often including suicides........as "gun violence" or "violent death" when they quote gun related deaths - and we make a bunch of assumptions on that word). Gun suicides have outnumbered gun homicides ever since the CDC began publishing the data. Not even a new trend, far as we can tell, it's always been that way. Now maybe that's changed in the last four years, I didn't check this morning - but it would have to change a hell of alot.

MA, you got the last two reversed. Suicide then homocide. But you aren't the only one who would wager on that order (then again, by young we mean minors, right?). Apparently, it's such a common (and well known) misconception that people actually study that misconception -itself- to gain further insight into our minds...

We have this idea that gangs of kids are roaming the streets knocking each other off left right and center - but they aren't...relative to the number of children who put on their mascara for that last time and end it all (often enough with daddys pistol, of course, availability). We've always been suffering under that delusion. Every generation has been convinced that the youth are diving into lawlessness and violence and the world is falling apart. You find it first expressed in the earliest surviving written works and it's a narrative that has held it's audience -ever since-. Part and parcel of our apocalypse fetish and the myth of the golden age (which is conveniently placed at whenever the currently old remember being young). Long story short, if you want to see a reduction in kids who end up dead by gun...talking to kids is actually going to do more than leaning on guns...simply because there's a bigger pool of misery to drain there. Shit, talking to kids might even get a little overlap - since a few of them might decide that they don't want to shoot another kid after all....once they got some feedback on it, IMO.

Meh...I'll admit that my view may be skewed, because just about everyone I know is Christian, and they all own guns, and most of them, lots of guns. I'll still say that religious people are inclined towards gun ownership, maybe with a little too much enthusiasm.

My bible thumping family in law are all vehemently anti-gun (and so were their parents.....and so on and so forth). I'm the gun nut (and so are my parents, and so on and so forth). There are more of them than me. I think what you may be seeing is that -americans- are inclined to own a gun -with enthusiasm-, and a large number of americans also happen to be christian.

[Aractus]

Rhythm, even if I agree with you that suicides are the main form of gun violence in the USA, how does that change the fact that those deaths are mostly preventable without easy access by everyone to firearms? I know people who attempted suicide in the past, and I can tell you that had they had a gun I wouldn't expect that they would have survived those attempts.