I would like to see more data on this honestly. My guts tells me that having a father figure is better than not having a father figure. But I also acknowledge not all dads are effective/positive father figures and vice versa.
However, let's not throw out the "plenty of . . . " comments in the same sentence as wondering about the data. Anecdotally, the vast majority of the fathers I know are genuinely decent people trying to do the best for their kids/family. The fact that a portion of any group are poor examples of that group is irrelevant to the overall value of the remainder of the group. See, "lawyers are snakes . . . pastors are pedophiles . . . racists are white . . . young black men are murderous gang bangers . . . Muslims are terrorists etc."
Sure, within each of those groups, a portion of that group is guilty of the thing being accused. But another, usually significantly larger, portion of the group is completely innocent of that same thing. The fact that terrorists exist does not mean that Islam is a net negative overall. That fact that some pastors are pedophiles does not mean that Christianity/pastors are a net negative overall. When dealing with significantly large groups of anything, "plenty of. . . " can still represent an extraordinarily small percentage of the whole.
All of this makes me think about what
@neffa3 said in the other thread, do we even really have a problem? Gun related deaths, including suicides, represent +/- 1.34% of all deaths in America as of 2020 (
here and
here) One could probably make the argument that suicides aren't really tragic for the individual as, in a sense, it is the ultimate expression of freedom. Sure, it hurts for the ones left to cope. But if you take any religious connections out of suicide, it is simply the outcome of the person's will for themselves.
Death is tragic; death of the young is particularly tragic. It does appear that gun related deaths have increased sharply amongst the 1 - 19 age group, but even that is heavily group towards males (85%+
here). And if you pull out the older teens who potentially know better or are involved some sort of illegal activity, the amount of suicides and homicides seem to drop significantly (over half) as well (
here)
But all of this conversation is about the cause of a very small percentage of actual deaths. When you narrow it down further by removing suicides, the percentage gets even smaller. Our time would be much better spent trying to figure how to keep people from eating themselves to death considering that heart disease deaths outrank gun related death by a factor of greater than 10:1 (
here). But let's be honest, Americans would be in uproar if we talked legislating the amount of calories in a 3x3 at In N Out (700+, or over 1/3 of daily recommendations for most, probably) or a Grande Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappucino (nearly 500, for a drink) or a 12oz ribeye (+/- 1,000). As a matter of fact, laws or attempts at laws in these arenas have been shot down several times.
It's like I said before, it looks good to others to cry, pray, and attempt legislate gun violence into non-existence. There's no glamour in denying your kid ice cream, taking away their cell phone, or making them run around outside for a little while. And there's less glamour in getting off of my fat butt and denying myself an extra helping of pizza. All of those things are likely more beneficial to my family than making it harder for someone else to get a gun than it already is.
