Thread: Cost of firearms deaths

Originally Posted by Rushy

I reckon any mainstream sporting activity (rugby, netball, soccer etc al) that you care to name would result in a higher annual hospital cost. But that is not relevant to the discussion.

I'd suggest that it may be relevant. Other sports and activities incur costs. Motorcycling , skydiving, scuba diving etc. Using firearms is not alone in being costly. I have a friend who has had plenty of metal in his body from his time riding motorcycles. The surgeries were paid for I believe, by ACC.

he who pays the piper calls the tune .
if you "borrow" one persons work to bulk up your own its plagiarism
borrow a whole lot and its research

lastly perhap the good dr could provide a report on otagos unique feature -its had 3 murderers on its teaching staff-something in the water perhaps???????

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

My take on the research is that it may stack up in pure science terms, but it will be misapplied by policymakers to construe the need for better regulation of firearms. If there was any interest in truly improving the safety of NZ, the research would consider each incident and whether the firearm was acquired / owned / used legally - that would bring context to the piece. Compliance with laws is at the heart of the debate. If people that comply are causing problems, then an intervention is needed. If the problems associated with firearms are caused by people who are not complying with existing laws, then enforcement of existing laws is probably a better expenditure of effort.

I think that this is truly the heart of the issue - with maybe the addition that likely the application of the existing laws is a potential contributing factor as well. There should never exist the situation where stakeholders in a regulated industry have to take the regulator to task through the courts due to "wishful application" of the legislation, and that happens so often in NZ across many different industries that it just isn't funny. It really speaks to an issue with the way our legislation is set up and applied in NZ, and not in a good way.

" If there was any interest in truly improving the safety of NZ, the research would consider each incident and whether the firearm was acquired / owned / used legally"

Agree wholeheartedly, if you were to for instance, remove suicide from the statistics, immediately the figures would likely much more than halve. Those individuals would likely still be a statistic, however they would be captured in another data set.

Further remove the unlawful use of firearms causing death and the true figure of the risk to society from lawful firearms users becomes quite small I would think. Certainly less than the socially acceptable cycling, drinking, rugby etc.

Originally Posted by Preacher

" If there was any interest in truly improving the safety of NZ, the research would consider each incident and whether the firearm was acquired / owned / used legally"

Agree wholeheartedly, if you were to for instance, remove suicide from the statistics, immediately the figures would likely much more than halve. Those individuals would likely still be a statistic, however they would be captured in another data set.

Further remove the unlawful use of firearms causing death and the true figure of the risk to society from lawful firearms users becomes quite small I would think. Certainly less than the socially acceptable cycling, drinking, rugby etc.

And the Govt use of firearms - Police etc, and you are looking at likely 1 or maybe a couple of death/serious injuries in a 12 month period from what I can gather...

Originally Posted by No.3

And the Govt use of firearms - Police etc, and you are looking at likely 1 or maybe a couple of death/serious injuries in a 12 month period from what I can gather...

Yes, but, and I will reiterate it for clarity, it doesn't matter that we are able to see the flaws in the current and proposed systems, the legislators already have a goal and they will enact that one little piece at a time. The plan is already in motion, unless we can all agree on some unified front as firearms owners, then, we will all lose our firearms anyway. As far as I can tell, we will not be able to do that, our views had been divided and conquered some time ago. I don't expect this will happen overnight, but I suspect the new rewrite will pave the way, there will be something small and innocuous in the proposed legislation that everyone will miss and this will be leveraged by future governments, left, right, centre, it doesn't matter. I think it unlikely we will see blanket bans in out lifetimes, but potentially that of our kids lifetimes for sure.

It will be interesting to see the results of that though. Predator free 2050 is a pipe dream at beast, TB eradication is impossible now and feral animal numbers have exploded in the years since the semi ban. But that won't factor in the reporting or the calculus as reality does not suit the narrative as we know. More legislation, at more cost to the taxpayer, for ever decreasing returns in terms of real safety requiring more and more tweaks to the legislation as it is never the fault of the people standing at the podium is it?

Originally Posted by No.3

It will be interesting to see the results of that though. Predator free 2050 is a pipe dream at beast, TB eradication is impossible now and feral animal numbers have exploded in the years since the semi ban. But that won't factor in the reporting or the calculus as reality does not suit the narrative as we know. More legislation, at more cost to the taxpayer, for ever decreasing returns in terms of real safety requiring more and more tweaks to the legislation as it is never the fault of the people standing at the podium is it?

No, it is ALWAYS the fault of the law abiding LFO That is why they are always being punished for everyone else's transgressions.

It isn't gangs or law abiding licensed firearm owners they want to regulate - it is guns. GFNZ doesn't want NZ to be safe - they want it to be guns free! Pellet guns, paintball guns, shotguns, pistols, rifles... they want guns to disappear. The easiest way to achieve a gun free state is to start with the legal, law abiding owners. The easiest way to take their guns is to make laws that eventually sap the will to own firearms from the average owner, then make them even stricter so that the enthusiast can't be arsed. Once that is done, ban private collections, and by that stage, only criminals will own firearms, and the gun death rate will be unchanged.

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

My take on the research is that it may stack up in pure science terms, but it will be misapplied by policymakers to construe the need for better regulation of firearms. If there was any interest in truly improving the safety of NZ, the research would consider each incident and whether the firearm was acquired / owned / used legally - that would bring context to the piece. Compliance with laws is at the heart of the debate. If people that comply are causing problems, then an intervention is needed. If the problems associated with firearms are caused by people who are not complying with existing laws, then enforcement of existing laws is probably a better expenditure of effort.

If there was any interest in improving safety in NZ we would actually learn from catastrophic events.
The recent flood events did not flood any areas that haven't had water over them before, so why would we not expect water to reach there again. Apparently weather patterns are changing, causing these events. But they are only changing from what we are familiar with, to a weather pattern which has happened before.
If the experts were serious about safety, towns like Taupo and Rotorua would be pulled down and moved. Who would build a town on a volcanic vent?
A bit off topic, but it illustrates the thinking capacity of some people.

Problem with that theory is if you go to the extreme - who would build on what is effectively a volcanic fault line from North to South? Chch is out, Wellington is out, Auckland is out, probably the only part of the outfit that isn't immediately stoofed would be near Wanganui but even that's debatable.

It's risk management - getting rid of the risk is not possible, and much to the consternation of people in many different fields and on many different topics some risk is inevitable. It's how you manage it that is the issue, and for firearms getting rid of lawfully held stocks won't solve the problem it literally just makes certain people feel better about themselves as having "done something" despite the results not being what was expected or desired and each time the measures enacted don't achieve what was expected the answer is to "do more". This is something we see in every area of governance, and it's not a good thing as we can see the costs and hurdles in place preventing infrastructure fixes from happening.

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

It isn't gangs or law abiding licensed firearm owners they want to regulate - it is guns. GFNZ doesn't want NZ to be safe - they want it to be guns free! Pellet guns, paintball guns, shotguns, pistols, rifles... they want guns to disappear. The easiest way to achieve a gun free state is to start with the legal, law abiding owners. The easiest way to take their guns is to make laws that eventually sap the will to own firearms from the average owner, then make them even stricter so that the enthusiast can't be arsed. Once that is done, ban private collections, and by that stage, only criminals will own firearms, and the gun death rate will be unchanged.

and if that was achieved, there would be no need for the police to have firearms, utopia for all!! Or a police state!

Police would still need firearms as just because you remove firearms it doesnt mean they wont be confronted with other weapons. But hey we can just ban those as well cant we?

A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.

We make no secret of it: broadcasting belongs to us, no one else! And we will place broadcasting in the service of our ideas, and no other idea will be given a chance to speak.

Josef Goebels - German Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, 1930s.

I would be shocked if the average person killed by a firearm in this country is tax positive. Not making light of the deaths I just don't like shitty maths by someone paid to be an intellectual being used to attack other people's ways of life. That woman should be spending her time learning to use a calculator instead of talking to the media and humiliating herself like that