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Katie's New Face

nationalgeographic.com

191–200 of 337 posts

Re: Katie's New Face

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gun is certainly more attractive as suicide tool than all the things you have listed. It's easy, quick and painless.

From the story, clearly it isn't. I've a friend who killed himself with a pistol. From the blood spatter around his house it was determined that he shot himself, survived and woke up, put a towel on his head, then shot himself again.

I guess I should have written "It looks quick, easy and painless". If I wanted to kill myself I probably would use a gun.

Re: Katie's New Face

#192
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

better solution would be not having guns at all, you don't see these suicides in Europe or very rarely due to limited access

Countries in Europe with higher suicide rates than the US: Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Latvia, Hungary, Slovenia, Ukraine, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria. Countries with nearly as high of a suicide rate: Germany, Czech, Portugal, Iceland Countries in Europe with high suicide rates, but solidly below the US: Slovakia, Denmark, Netherlands, Ireland, Romania, Norw…

not sure what have suicide rates to do with guns, they are based on various socioeconomic factors so if you want honestly compare us with something you should find country with similar living standards, environment etc which doesn't have easily accessible guns

but you are right banning access to guns doesn't mean that 100% of those people won't commit suicide, but I guess it could shave at least few percentage points from suicides by gun and most importantly gun accidents would be drastically reduced, you don't see children accidentally killing/hurting someone daily in Europe

if you want serious comparison i am aware of only one country with similar cultural background - Australia, proving limiting gun access can reduce crime, accidents etc

Re: Katie's New Face

#193
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where the argument always fails for me. "But having a gun means I can defend my family!" Against what? I just don't buy the premise that you're significantly at risk of a violent attack out of nowhere, for no reason, at any given time. I've never felt even remotely unsafe living in London, let alone felt the need to keep a weapon on me.

>Against what? In the US, that would be against the individuals who collectively commit millions of violent crimes per year (surveys indicate this number easily exceeds 5 million per year).

What the hell do you mean "surveys"? You don't need "surveys" to tell you how many violent crimes there are in a year. We have actual statistics. And the numbers are not in the millions. Stop pushing lies.

Re: Katie's New Face

#194
While the two were outside talking about how upset Katie was, she went into the bathroom, put the barrel of Robert’s .308-caliber hunting rifle below her chin, and pulled the trigger. When Robert kicked in the locked door, he found his little sister covered in blood. “And her face is gone,” he recalled

Who puts a loaded hunting rifle in so accessible way in their homes?

Re: Katie's New Face

#195

> Much of Katie’s care is being paid for by the Department of Defense, because her youth and ballistic trauma make her a stand-in for wounded warriors. For the rest of her life, she’ll take powerful antirejection drugs with risks of their own, becoming a lifelong subject in the study of this still experimental surgery. Kudos to the DoD for doing this. The military historically has been the driver for advances in surg…

Even better would be not losing her face to begin with. This was preventable. Am I the only one to notice the events that led up to this? 1. Young girl moves multiple times due to her parent’s jobs, causing for stress and anxiety. 2. Girl finds stability and passion when she is granted an encouraging educational experience/environment at a private school where her parents both found contract jobs. 3. Parents both los…

She shot herself in the face.

Re: Katie's New Face

#196

It's wrong that assisted suicide is illegal. The only humane thing to do here is let her pass in peace.

The humane thing is to let her choose what to do. But I agree that assisted suicide should be an option, under the supervision of trained psychiatrists and science-based protocols.

Given that her only choices were to live horrifically disfigured or to undergo experimental treatment that involves living highly medicalized for the rest of her life, I think assisted suicide should absolutely have been an option.

Actually, I think assisted suicide should be a right for all people 25+ years old, in particular, at the very least, should be optional for those presented with harsh physical issues like those presented in the OP.

Re: Katie's New Face

#197
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, we could just stop sending our young people out to get blown up... Kudos to the DoD for funding these experiments but they're solving a problem of their own creation...

Oh hey, that's an idea. Why didn't we think of that earlier? Hey everybody lets just stop wars! Unfortunately, there will always be bad people and the only way to keep the innocent safe is for good people to step in and do difficult things.

And most good people concentrated in one set of countries and most bad people concentrated in another. It’s not grids of interests and interesting consequences, it’s just a distribution, man! All bad guys just happen to be over there hating you. Just because you’re better and know better. /s

Surprisingly, most of the times you don’t get bites by simply not sticking your nose into every wasp nest. Still, doing that creates enough chaos and green light to “protect by any means necessary”.

Re: Katie's New Face

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better would be not losing her face to begin with. This was preventable. Am I the only one to notice the events that led up to this? 1. Young girl moves multiple times due to her parent’s jobs, causing for stress and anxiety. 2. Girl finds stability and passion when she is granted an encouraging educational experience/environment at a private school where her parents both found contract jobs. 3. Parents both los…

She shot herself in the face.

I explained that.

Or, are you trying to imply something? If so, please elaborate.

Re: Katie's New Face

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop seeing everything through a racial lens. It is the first time an incredibly complex surgery has been performed, the race of the person is irrelevant. If this surgery was in China and performed on a Chinese person it would be just as groundbreaking.

Sorry, I definitely disagree with you and I'm not going to stop. I don't see everything through a racial lens but I do think there is a lot of racial injustice and it should be called out and discussed where it makes sense, like here (IMO).

It doesn't make sense in this context though.

Re: Katie's New Face

#200

As a father to two so-far-healthy young boys, one soon to be a teenager I feel devastated at the thought of either of them having to endure the level of emotional chaos that Katie went through the moments leading up to her suicide attempt. My stomach goes into a knot at the thought. I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path.

Perhaps if there are no instruments at hand that allow the young to act on such a disastrous suicidal impulse, at least some of these incidents could be prevented.

If you're arguing for proper storage of guns, I completely agree with you. If you're arguing that we should reduce gun ownership to save lives, you're ignoring how many lives are saved by private ownership of guns. Unfortunately, no one keeps track of this statistic, but the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]. This study only provides an estimate, but still, compare that to 13,000 firearm related murders [1] and 22,000 suicides [2, Table 6 on page 33]. I think we need more data but from what I've seen so far it seems to me private gun ownership is a net benefit.

0: https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15 1: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf

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