Reid using his dead father to argue for gun control

[itshappening]

This man is seriously UNHINGED!

He's using his own dead father to argue for gun control.

How low are they going to go with this?

-
"Sometimes people in a fit of passion will purchase the handgun to do bad things with it, Mr. President, even as my dad did, kill themselves. Waiting a few days helps." — Senator Harry Reid

http://www.buzzfeed.com/dorsey/harry-reid-invokes-his-fathers-suicide-on-the-senate-floor

[Nirvikalpa]

And you're using a dead woman who was delivering schoolbooks to a school to argue against the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan.

Would you call yourself unhinged?

[itshappening]

And you're using a dead woman who was delivering schoolbooks to a school to argue against the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan.

Would you call yourself unhinged?

She's not related to me, this is a bit different.

[belian78]

Someone that wants to kill themselves will find a way. To try and use a suicide as justification to strip more of American's freedoms away is preposterous.

[Acala]

I can't imagine the emotional scars the suicide of a parent leaves on a child. I'm giving him a pass on this one.

edit: by the way, I think this is a strong indication that gun control is dead in the water at the Federal level. Reid is counting on nothing getting to a vote in the Senate so he is relatively safe making this plea to appease his party knowing he will not have to actually besmirtch his pro-gun record with a a vote for gun control. I think you can just about put a fork in it.

[JK/SEA]

bfd....so his dad killed himself...lets go straight to gun control because 'i'm effed up over it. Reid, you're still a fuckin' POS.

[RockEnds]

My adoptive mother committed suicide with a handgun. Heck, my next door neighbor committed suicide with a handgun a few years back. I felt bad about both of them. I took mom pretty hard. I felt bad about the next door neighbor because I was outside and heard the shot. It sounded like a couple boards clapping together. I thought maybe someone was doing repairs. Two days later, when the emergency vehicles showed up, I felt bad that he'd laid there that long. And I felt bad that someone had to find him. If I'd realized, I would have certainly made sure his (adult) kids didn't walk in to find that. He was really old, and his wife had passed not long before.

It's all sad, but I just don't see how any of this has to do with restricting the right to bear arms.

[Christian Liberty]

My biggest problem with using emotion in politics is that its always for more government. Unfortunately, to win you kind of have to use their techniques and using emotional stories isn't necessarily immoral per say. Its the message, not the emotion, that is the fundamental problem.

So I see nothing wrong with being cheap right back at them and saying "How can you be for the war think of the person who died" and whatever. Although you should be careful who you do this with. If your opponent is debating fairly and you throw emotion into it, that's not really right. If you throw it back, that's different.

As for Reid's father, in addition to everything else, you do have a right to kill yourself.

[KerriAnn]

If it were illegal to own guns, how many more innocent law abiding citizens would die at the hands of criminals who bear arms illegally? How many innocents would die because they had no access to weapons that would protect them? Would it outweigh the amount of deaths from these suicides and murders that happen with legally owned weapons?

[Darguth]

It's all sad, but I just don't see how any of this has to do with restricting the right to bear arms.

I'm sorry to hear about your mother and neighbor, and I don't mean to sound insensitive, but in a sense I feel like the efficiency of guns as a tool for suicide is in a sense a pro-gun fact if viewed through the lens of individual liberty and responsibility. I'd also like to preface the following with my own personal views on suicide that I think it is wrong, selfish, and generally harmful to not just yourself but to others.

However, every competent theory on individual/property rights begins with the assertion that we have a right to our own selves and materially to our own bodies. All other rights derive from this basis. So it seems logical to me that if I have a right to own myself and my body, I naturally have the right to destroy my body/end my life. If I have a right to end my life then it also follows that I have the right to the tools necessary for the death of my choosing. Much in the same vein that if I have the right to self-defense to protect my body (my property), I also have the derived right tools necessary for effective defense. (Of course taking into account you're not *entitled* to those tools, as in someone else must give them to you, but rather you should have the right to acquire them for this use.)

Therefore, in a sense, it seems a logical stance to take would that because guns are such effective tools of suicide, which is an act we have a right to take should we so choose (though, again, I am NOT advocating for suicide in any way being a good or right decision in my opinion), then they should be permitted because of this. The direct opposite of the prohibitionists who claim this is a reason to restrict such ownership. If I were to commit suicide I'd likely prefer a quick and clean death of a single shot to the head then a slow death by strangling myself, cutting open my wrists, or swallowing a lot of medication/poison.

Do I think if firearm ownership was more restrictive there would likely be less overall suicides? Probably. Suicide is, unfortunately, often a spontaneous act. Removing efficient tools for that act from the environment would likely deter suicides and if a suicide is deterred momentarily it appears there is at least some supporting evidence that the person will not attempt it again (not always, but sometimes).

However, it is not our place to craft socially engineered laws and regulations to try to modify justifiable behavior of other individuals. I'd like to see fewer people commit suicide, and I've personally talked people out of those crisis points before, but I don't think it is my place to use the violence of the state to stop them or try to hinder them. Their life is theirs, just as much as my life is mine.

Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to ramble, but those are my $0.02.

[RockEnds]

I'm sorry to hear about your mother and neighbor, and I don't mean to sound insensitive, but in a sense I feel like the efficiency of guns as a tool for suicide is in a sense a pro-gun fact if viewed through the lens of individual liberty and responsibility. I'd also like to preface the following with my own personal views on suicide that I think it is wrong, selfish, and generally harmful to not just yourself but to others.

However, every competent theory on individual/property rights begins with the assertion that we have a right to our own selves and materially to our own bodies. All other rights derive from this basis. So it seems logical to me that if I have a right to own myself and my body, I naturally have the right to destroy my body/end my life. If I have a right to end my life then it also follows that I have the right to the tools necessary for the death of my choosing. Much in the same vein that if I have the right to self-defense to protect my body (my property), I also have the derived right tools necessary for effective defense. (Of course taking into account you're not *entitled* to those tools, as in someone else must give them to you, but rather you should have the right to acquire them for this use.)

Therefore, in a sense, it seems a logical stance to take would that because guns are such effective tools of suicide, which is an act we have a right to take should we so choose (though, again, I am NOT advocating for suicide in any way being a good or right decision in my opinion), then they should be permitted because of this. The direct opposite of the prohibitionists who claim this is a reason to restrict such ownership. If I were to commit suicide I'd likely prefer a quick and clean death of a single shot to the head then a slow death by strangling myself, cutting open my wrists, or swallowing a lot of medication/poison.

Do I think if firearm ownership was more restrictive there would likely be less overall suicides? Probably. Suicide is, unfortunately, often a spontaneous act. Removing efficient tools for that act from the environment would likely deter suicides and if a suicide is deterred momentarily it appears there is at least some supporting evidence that the person will not attempt it again (not always, but sometimes).

However, it is not our place to craft socially engineered laws and regulations to try to modify justifiable behavior of other individuals. I'd like to see fewer people commit suicide, and I've personally talked people out of those crisis points before, but I don't think it is my place to use the violence of the state to stop them or try to hinder them. Their life is theirs, just as much as my life is mine.

Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to ramble, but those are my $0.02.

I agree with you. I'm against outcome based legislation and the general idea of social engineering. Suicide is difficult for the family, and I think it's doubly difficult because someone has to find the individual. Still, I don't believe it's the government's business to attempt to save people from themselves. I do believe the individual has a right to take his or her own life if that's really what they want. I'm even in favor of assisted suicide under certain circumstances. The old man next door lived his life and owed nothing to anyone. Mom was a little different. She was simply depressed, and she had two minor children at home, one of whom was me. She maybe owed it to those around her to think twice. I think having dependent children and a lack of terminal illness should disqualify an individual from assisted suicide. That said, I don't think society needs to go into savior mode, either. It was her choice. I think it was unnecessary and tragic, but it was still her choice, and I wouldn't want to strip others of their Constitutional rights because she decided she didn't want to meet tomorrow.

jmo

[tasteless]

Not gonna lie, I came into this thread chuckling thinking that this was gonna be an Onion article with a hilariously photoshopped pic of Harry Reid practicing necromancy

[sailingaway]

Washington is dead too, and so is Thomas Jefferson, and they outnumber his dead father two to one. And the Constitution which Reid's dead father's son took an oath to is on their side.

[sailingaway]

I also don't think if someone wanted to kill themselves not having a gun would stop them. Anyone can drive over a cliff or cut their wrists. Or poison themselves, they would just suffer more in the process.