Anti-gun proponents argue that eliminating (or dramatically restricting access to) guns would have a significant effect on the overall number of gun deaths. Since suicides represent nearly two thirds of all firearm-related deaths, it stands to reason, they say, that suicides by gun would drop precipitously. The real question is whether the elimination of guns would actually reduce the overall number of suicides or just result in fewer suicides by firearm. Since it’s impossible to answer that question definitively without actually going through the exercise, we can make an educated guess as to what would happen if (more) radical restrictions on gun ownership became a reality . . .
Hypothetically, if access to guns was eliminated or severely restricted, I think that we can all agree that the number of suicides performed with a gun would drop. But does that really matter? Before you accuse me of being a heartless bastard, let me clarify. I think that most of us can agree that suicide as a concept is distasteful. From my perspective, I am interested in solutions that reduce the total number of suicides, not those that just prevent one method. The question then is, “If we restrict access to guns, do we reduce the TOTAL number of suicides or simply change the mix of methods?” Do people still kill themselves off at the same rate, but do it without a gun? A solution that changes the mix without affecting the overall rate is not particularly useful.
What’s interesting is that the academic literature that I have been able to find relating the accessibility of guns to the gun suicide rate almost always seems to focus only on the Unites States. I can find studies that compare suicide rates between regions and states, but there is less material out there that looks at the U.S. compared to other countries.
One such example is the Harvard School of Public Health’s list of works on Firearms suicide. The studies cited on this page all focus exclusively on the U.S. and generally conclude that states that have higher gun availability have higher rates of gun suicides. As I stated before, this conclusion is not surprising. After all, guns are good tool for suicide and if they are more accessible in some regions, then they are going to be used more frequently for suicide. It’s kind of like proving that water is wet.
What is far more interesting is that many of the studies cited on the School of Public Health’s page looked at overall suicide rates in addition to gun suicide rates. Those states that had easier access to guns also have higher overall suicide rates than states or regions with less access to guns. This is a very interesting distinction that seems to get glossed over. Going back to the logic course I took back in High School (Catholic education and all that), this collection of observations leads to two conclusions:
- Easier access to guns results in higher firearm suicide rates
- States that have higher overall suicide rates also have higher firearm suicide rates
Someone who does not understand logic (or common sense) might suggest a third conclusion:
- Easier access to guns results in higher overall suicide rates
I’ll allow for the possibility that some Brady Bunch member or Mother Against Intelligent Discourse (MAID) who is feeling depressed with the Colorado recall election results and is bummed by how easy a gun is to get might off themselves in protest, but for most people, simply living in a state that respects gun rights is not likely to increase their overall chances of suicide. In fact, since many of the studies cited on the School of Public Health’s page found that that gun suicide and overall suicide rates were positively correlated, one might conclude that the suicide problem lies someplace other than with easy gun availability. Something is causing people in these states to commit suicide at a higher rate than in other places and we should focus on those issues rather than simply blaming guns which it would appear to be merely facilitators rather than the cause.
Now, I’m certainly willing to accept a causal relationship between greater gun access and greater gun suicide rates. After all, guns are highly effective for that purpose and if they are more widely available, they are going to be more widely used. However, I am not willing to accept a causal relationship between gun availability and higher rates of non-gun suicide. The mere presence of guns is not going to make people more likely to commit non-gun suicide. So, this additional variable begs a question – if the same place has higher gun availability and higher overall suicide rates, is it possible that the relationship between guns and suicide is merely one of correlation rather than causation? If that is the case, then restricting access to guns might not in fact have any real impact on the overall suicide rate.
The biggest question that is not answered by many of these studies is whether the suicide rate in the U.S. as a whole is greater, equal to, or less than the suicide rate in other developed countries. The U.S. currently has an annual suicide rate in the of 12 suicide victims per 100,000 people. Some people might argue this number is too high, others amazed at how low it is. Before we start down this road, one thing worth keeping in mind is that since most of the countries that will be used for comparison have strict gun laws, I concede that the rate of suicide by firearm in these countries will be much lower than in the U.S. That said; remember that I am concerned with the overall suicide rate, not one specific method. I don’t want people killing themselves, period. A low firearms-related suicide rate is irrelevant if the overall suicide rate is high.
We begin with World Health Organization data as referenced by the Wikipedia Article on Suicide Rates. There is some controversy surrounding this list – mainly there are claims that it may underreport the actual suicide in countries that have poor recordkeeping systems, but for our purposes- comparing the U.S. suicide rate to other modern, industrialized nations, it will suffice.
The first thing that we notice from this listing is that the Eastern European and Asian countries tend to place higher on the list. Many of the countries near the top including China, Japan, and Russia have very strict gun laws, so guns are clearly not a contributing factor in these countries. While one might take solace in the fact that Japan’s suicide rate of 21.7 per 100,000 is nearly double the United States’ rate of 12.0 per 100,000, one must consider the sociological differences between the two countries. While Japan is very similar to the U.S. in terms of economics and industrialization, its culture and religion are very different. Furthermore, the level of stress felt by the average worker is much higher in Japan than it is in the United States so a high suicide rate is unsurprising. For this reason, Japan makes a poor candidate for comparison.
Western European nations, Canada, and Australia have cultures and belief systems closer to America’s. With this in mind, let’s compare the suicide rates of several of these nations to our own.
- Belgium 17 per 100,000
- France 14.7 per 100,000
- Austria 12.9 per 100,000
- United States 12.0 per 100,000
- UK 11.8 per 100,000
- Canada 11.5 per 100,000
- Australia 9.7 per 100,000
America’s suicide rate falls smack in the middle of the pack. Australia’s rate is lower while Belgium and France have higher rates. Note that while every country on this list with the exception of the U.S. have strong prohibitions against personal firearms ownership, it does not seem to have made a difference in terms of overall suicide rates.
So, what conclusions can be drawn from this data? The obvious one is that assuming America is not all that different culturally than Western Europe, Canada, or Australia, we should not expect the elimination of guns to have that much of an effect on the overall suicide rate. Yes, elimination or restriction of guns would certainly have a positive effect on the number of gun-related suicides, but in the end, the method a loved one uses to commit suicide is far less important to me than is the fact that he or she committed suicide in the first place.
In the end, the theory that the restriction or elimination of guns would have a positive effect on the overall suicide rate in the U.S. does not hold up under scrutiny. Like so many other initiatives advanced by gun control proponents, it is clearly a straw man argument and should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.
Why should it be anyone else’s business if an individual wants to take his or her own life? A person has the right to live their life and end their life as they see fit.
Individuals, families, and doctors can handle this issue on their own without interference from society or government. We, as a society, should try to help those that want it, but we should not stand in the way of someone who no longer desires to live.
The gun debate in this issue is irrelevant.
Because the state owns your life and if you choose to end it then you have usurped the power of the State. That is why Progressives favor abortion. Abortionists are agents of the state and that sanctions their ability to end life. Libertarians don’t understand the connection between abortion and the rise of state power.
I’m calling bullshit. Until the “State” as you put it is mandating abortions, i.e. it is not a personal choice, that argument fails. It is also contradictory to imply that the “State” owns your life, presumably dissuading suicides to continue reaping the rewards of your slavery, and yet is somehow in favor of systematically undermining the number of slaves it has access to by enabling abortion – particularly abortions in the most servile demographics.
What you don’t seem to understand, is the hypocrisy inherent in advocating choice on one end of life and non-choice on the other.
You can call BS all you want but doesn’t make you right. The State is moving to sanctioning “voluntary” euthanasia (we will see how voluntary it is when the government controls your healthcare) aka the “right to die.” Note that the State is just fine when you decide to commit suicide when it saves them money but it is somehow wrong for some person who decides he wants to die just because and but whatever means. No, it is all about enhancing the power of the State and ultimate power if power over life.
td, I tend to agree with your point up to a point. The State has no problems making life or death decisions for people here and abroad. What government kills more people than the US? It’s only when people make their own life or death decisions that the State gets kinda peevish. Like with suicide or assisted suicide.
But when a woman makes a life or death decision about her embryo or fetus, that is one decision that the state did not make. It kinda cuts against the argument, even though the death of the embryo or fetus was State sanctioned. I think it’s a distortion of statist doctrine, forced upon the State by its most dependent constituency.
In other words, to maintain State power, it threw the women a bone. In return, women elect statists, time after time. It was a clever power move.
As lawyer you know that Roe v. Wade was the legalization of abortion by SCOTUS fiat. By definition it is State sanctioned at that point. I would argue that Roe v Wade established an extra-Constitutional right since it seems that even “common sense”: regulations designed to keep unscrupulous providers like Kermit Gosnell out of the business are deemed unconstitutional. If abortion were a constitutional right we wouldn’t be having an Obamacare debate. The law clearly violates the right of privacy that we attach to abortion.
If abortion were a constitutional right we wouldn’t be having an Obamacare debate.
td, I don’t get this point at all. Roe v. Wade, the product of a statist Court, held that abortion was not merely a right, but a fundamental right triggering strict scrutiny of laws in derogation of that right.
Hey, I’m in favor of abortion — I think there are a lot of cases where it should be required — but a fundamental right? Really?
And the right that is indelibly written into the Constitution plain as day — my right to keep and bear arms — is that subject to strict scrutiny too? Because of it is, a lot of the bullsh1t we’re living with now is over.
Roe v Wade “guarantees the “right to privacy” between doctor and patient. The ACA puts the government in a position to interfere with that so-called right in every medical decision except abortion. If the constitutional right to an abortion is based on doctor/patient privacy it should be a general right. Since it is not then I conclude that it is an extra-constitutional right.
Many rights are extra-constitutional.
That’s why that whole “these enumerated rights are not to be construed as encompassing all rights; any right not expressly denied is one acknowledged” bit toward the end of the first ten Amendments.
Great article. This argument really needed to be debunked.
I’ve looked into this myself (though not as thoroughly), and came to almost the same conclusion — except that I think there’s a chance that firearms could play into a higher suicide rate in one way: it’s an instant and irreversible method. There seems to be an element of impulsiveness in a fair number of suicides. People who may survive an attempt by some other method and later conquer the suicidal urge for good won’t generally get that chance if they use a gun.
But even so, that’s not a big enough factor to outweigh the benefits of guns in any argument of social utility.
I think taking the walk off a chair with a rope around your neck, jumping in from a train or taking a dive off a tall bridge is pretty irreversible and quick as well. The irreversibility argument is a strawman.
Ing,
I understand your thinking and yet I believe it is irrelevant. Some suicide “attempts” are cries for help rather than the actions of a person who is determined to end their life. A person who is determined will find a way. And even if someone intervened and saved the determined person’s life, the determined person will simply do it again and make sure they succeed.
Think about it. Succeeding is as simple as driving your car without your seat belt into the giant concrete pillars of a highway overpass at 100 mph. Cars and highway overpasses are everywhere. If a person has $300 to purchase a firearm for suicide, they also have $300 to rent a car and drive it into concrete pillar. Of course jumping from high buildings or cliffs is equally effective. Finally, tall trees, ladders, and rope are everywhere.
However you slice it, the fact that someone else may misuse a firearm has no bearing on my right to own and possess firearms.
You both make good points, but I’m not convinced.
If there’s good evidence that people who survive attempts that are just short of lethal seriously meant to die *and* frequently don’t attempt it again, that means the method is not irrelevant. And guns being ubiquitous in America, and simple to use, they’ll be prominent among the many methods. (Having said that, I admit that I’m trusting someone else’s analysis here; I haven’t read the primary research myself.)
I’m with you, though, in that someone else’s misuse of a firearm has no bearing on my right to have one and use it as I see fit.
Guns are not 100% fatal either. I give you the example of Captain Hebert Sobel who shot himself in the head and failed to get it done.
The answer is there is “evidence”, which depends on the academically unconfirmed distinction between long-suffering vs impulsive suicides. It comes from Matthew Miller of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center (not to be confused with Harvard Public Health, though some faculty overlap, including Miller).
HICRC is a shop that produces, IMHO, advocacy (i.e., junk) science. In addition to continuing to build off of Kellerman’s largely debunked work, they come up with some bizarre proxy measures for gun ownership (e.g., firearm suicide/suicides) that lead circularly to the conclusion that suicide is 2-5 times more likely with a gun in the house. The numbers implied by that factor are implausible on the surface and far greater than the actual number of firearm suicides. To make things worse, Miller uses survey data from emergency room visits, which suffers from readily apparent selection biases, to estimate the percentage of long-suffering vs impulsive suicide in the population of people who admit to attempting suicide. Ipso facto, hocus pocus new “evidence” is produced and trumpeted that shows guns create suicide. Similar silly methodologies are followed by HICRC-affiliated authors to support the idea that guns increase the rate of homicide and other violent crimes. None of the innovative research coming out of other Harvard entities such as Schools of Public Health and Psychology ever refer to firearms as an important factor in suicide (see, Matthew Nock’s work in particular)
HICRC and the Bloomberg funded operation out of Johns Hopkins are the primary suppliers of junk gun science these days, aided and abetted by two or three medical journals who are run by editors that advocate against guns. This fact is apparently not well-known even among the gun community. Kleck and Kopel fight with these clowns endlessly, but they have a bigger microphone.
Interesting… You seem to know a lot more about this topic than I do (or ever will). So I saw some evidence, but it may not have been GOOD evidence.
Really? Why does anyone care about gun-related anything? Overall stats are the only ones that matter.
No one once has ever challenged Piers Morgan et al. when he say “gun violence”. They just blather on like he never said the gun part.
Someone needs to call people out on this, outside of internet forums. Uk has more violence per capita that the US does period. And thats all that should matter. The gun is just a tool.
Stop F@U€ ing labeling this $#!T as Gun this or Gang that. Just look at the bloody OVERALL statistics. The info is all RIGHT THERE!!!
Yeah. I REALLY don’t understand why nobody pounces on especially Piers when he talks about “gun violence” “gun crime” “gun murders” “gun suicides” statistics going down thanks to gun control or gun bans and confiscations. It seems so obvious. Such an easy way to shame the person and demonstrate their clear and open political agenda and hatred of GUNS, not of violence/crime/murder/suicide.
I think it may have to do with nobody but us and his mother watching Piers anyway.
And I always wondered who would name their child after two maritime docking structures. I think even his parents hate him.
As Jim points out both the US and the UK have the same suicide rate. When Americans decide to end their lives they reach for the gun because it is available. In the UK they reach for something else but in the end dead is dead.
If you look at the places that have high gun ownership and higher suicide rates they just happen to be the states with low population densities. There are fewer mental health resources available, the culture frowns upon going to see a mental health professional and people live more isolated lives with weaker social support network. I don’t think the Harvard study accounted for those key factors. Given the politicization of social science research my guess is they deliberately chose to ignore those factors.
There are fewer mental health resources available
You nailed it. Better mental health resources made readily available will reduce suicides and probably mass shootings too. A mass shooting is nothing more than a suicide with a big build up.
Quite so, but the mental health facilities and services in the larger metropolitan areas win no prizes either. They usually only provide meds and throw the “clients” back on the street with zero followup. Just look at the news from the NYC area for proof.
I lived and practiced law in NYC for a long time and I’m familiar with the City’s mental health system. As bad as it is, it’s much better than almost any other place in the US that I can think of. I think it’s one of the reasons that the suicide rate there is fairly low, given all the stresses that New York puts on the people who live in that anthill.
While I enjoyed reading Mr. Barrett’s commentary is, I think it is totally unnecessary to debunk the gun control suicide myth. Japan is the gun control utopia that civilian disarmament proponents want. Basically there are no guns in Japan. And yet Japanese people have no trouble finding ways to kill themselves.
That simple fact establishes that people who are determined to end their own lives will succeed even if there are no guns anywhere. Thus anyone who claims that gun control will prevent a determined person from killing themselves is lying.
I personally know two people who took their own lives with firearms. Neither were gun enthusiasts, but had a gun in their closet/drawer or wherever. Both were elderly, sick and in pain and had no chance of an improved quality of life. I’m sure they would have taken their lives in some other manner if their hadn’t been a firearm available The firearm allowed them to fulfill their choice in a quick and painless way.
Ditto. I knew two men, both had cancer, both were in pain. The DEA regs on doctors, coupled with the remoteness of the rural west, meant that they couldn’t get the pain management meds they needed in later stages. So they killed themselves – with guns.
Another example of how government has improved the lives of people through regulation.
We have found the perfect solution for suicide in the US, all based on your progressive anti guntards penchant for everyone shares responsibility for everyone else’s actions!
This based on a N Korean defectors response to what is the suicide rate in N Korea!
http://hangukstory.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-north-korea-has-lowest-suicide-rate.html
North Korea is known to be the country with the lowest suicide rate on earth. Why is this, for this nation with the worst world economy, human rights violations, and highest number of defectors in the world? It is because there is a mental pressure far stronger than suicide itself.
North Korea defines, “Every citizens of DPRK is a family member of ‘Kim Il Sung People’ and a child of ‘Ocean-like Kim Jong Il comrade’.” Because of this, every citizen is a member of this larger society; therefore, committing suicide is considered a treason, marking the person as a traitor to the leader, the party, the nation, and the people.
If someone in your family committed suicide, everyone in the family gets purged by North Korea’s infamous ‘implicated crime law’. This is why a North Korean citizen can end his/her poor life by starving/freezing/beaten to death, but not suicide. However, even with this kind of strict and unforgiving social pressure on suicide, some people kill themselves with much contempt for their government.
Suicide may let the dead rest, but the rest of the family would be socially and politically ostracized for the rest of their lives, with no hope for success or career.
So in reality, you anti guntards should be all over this kind of law, punish those not responsible, collectively, the kommie lovers way.
Convicted of suicide or violent felony, your entire family will never have welfare, food stamps, free school, no citizenship, etc, etc…no trial to decide this, automatic and no repeals!
That would be a constitutional law as we already see law abiding people not guilty of committing a crime being taxed, registered, banned because of the criminals actions.
So when are you anti guntards going to buy into such an obvious good law that would reduce suicides and violence in just a couple months time eh?
My eye was immediately drawn to an interesting “cluster” in the rates:
Austria 12.9 per 100,000
United States 12.0 per 100,000
UK 11.8 per 100,000
I have to wonder what caused this. Austria is culturally dissimilar to the US and UK, yet is well within a standard deviation for the entire group. Could this be due to an external adjustment, perhaps correcting for population size or the amount of beer consumed?
The gun control push of the 90’s in Canada reduced firearm suicide and the overall rate remained exactly the same. The substitution effect exists, and it’s 1 for 1.
Surely someone, somewhere has done some kind of analysis of suicide rates before and after gun control was introduced in the UK. If the US and UK are socially similar (which completely grosses me out to posit), then the UK rates before handgun confiscation, then again before and after later gun control measures ought to provide some guidance here, basically using the rates in the US as a control.
I read something about this in the past 9 months but can’t find it again. I know there are problems with reporting accuracy and vaguely recall issues historically with how data was collected and how the act was defined (intentional vs. accidental death)… I also recall reading something similar about Canada suicide rates before and after some gun control events. I have GOT to get my links and resources organized better.
Just a tip if anyone has time to google around.
You raise an interesting side question or two:
How are so-called “suicides by cop” counted?
and
Is the incidence rising or falling?
This is especially interesting in light of the steady increase in armed police in the UK.
Unfortunately there are some serious recent problems with changes in definitions of suicide and other crime statistics reported by the police in the UK. But Lott has shown that the rate of change in all violent crime (suicide) has fallen more slowly (increased more rapidly) in the UK than other industrialized countries like the US since imposition of their ban. Perhaps a better case is Australia:
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Publication/5542796/the-australian-firearms-buyback-and-its-effect-on-gun-deaths
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Paper/11646528.aspx
Neither study finds evidence that the gun ban affected suicide rates. Both studies are controversial in Australia as you might expect. Btw, it appears that by 2012 Australia’s suicide rate per 100k exceeded the US rate. Suicide is increasing rapidly in Australia, including firearm suicide, especially among young to middle-aged males. Sorry, but I lost the reference to that study.
I think what we have in the U.S. re: firearm suicides is a simple case of parallel correlation. Densely populated, highly urbanized states also tend to be the ones with severe gun laws and less access to guns. However, they’re also by the same token the ones that have less social isolation and easier access to mental health services. Compare that to less populated states, where the “frontier” ethic prevails – guns are prevalent but it’s a lot easier to be isolated and mental health services are hard to come by in the Alaskan wilderness.
Back in the 90’s, someone did a study on firearms and suicide in the US. One of the data trends studied was that of the Japanese.
In Japan, the suicide rate (overall) is something over 20 per 100K population.
In the US, the suicide rate among people of Japanese heritage was below the US average. Even with access to firearms.
From reviewing the rates of suicide in various countries in the 90’s, I came to the conclusion that the major causalities of the underlying reasons for a nation’s suicide rate are a) cultural, b) environmental.
The suicide rate among Russian men who otherwise drink themselves into an early grave is cultural.
The suicide rate among males in rural American is environmental.
The suicide rate among American rural men with firearms is because a gun is the tool at hand.
Belgium doesn’t have high firearms availability but they can own virtually the same stuff American’s can with the proper licensing so a nation with a “Gun Prohibition” they are not.
Australian gun ban and the impact on suicides
http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html
Looking at this list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
What the heck is going on in Greenland?
They finally figured out they wanted to be in Iceland instead?
Same thing that leads Wyoming to have such a high suicide rate: Winter can really drive some people to the end of their rope.
Wind+sub-zero cold tends to make mentally weak people cash in. It’s true in Greenland, it’s true here, it’s true in the Dakotas, Montana, Alaska, you name it.
(in your link, click the “more info” link next to Greenland’s name.)
Several reasons are blamed for Greenland’s high rate of suicide, including alcoholism, depression, poverty, conflict-ridden relationship with partner, dysfunctional parental homes, etc. According to a report published in the Science Daily in 2009, the suicide rate in Greenland increases during the summer. Researchers have blamed insomnia caused by incessant daylight.
Culture clash between the traditional culture and modern Western culture is also assumed to be a contributing factor.
“The U.S. currently has an annual suicide rate in the of 12 suicide victims per 100,000 people.”
Could we not call people who commit suicide “victims”, please? It strikes me as odd that the person who COMMITS the act is considered the victim.
we’d have less suicides with more natural gas control,knife,control,hammer,control,drug,control,poison control,drunk driving control,mental illness control and don’t forget STUPID LIBATARD CONTROL!
The suicide issue is no different from the violence issue. Firearms are just the method, if we want to make real progress, we have to look at the root causes.
It frustrates the hell out of me every time the gun control crowd or the media, does this. They act as if the availability of a firearm is the only factor in a given area’s crime (or suicide) rate. I ask, what is the poverty rate? What is the unemployment rate? What is the incidence of drug/alcohol abuse?
There is no easy fix for violence or suicide, we all know this. When the president promises to lower crime, or protect the children, by restricting access to guns, I can at least see a strategy. He has no real power to reduce violence in our society (certainly not in four years), so he pushes highly visible gun restrictions so that it looks like he did SOMETHING, and hopes to win over ignorant voters.
I want to know what’s in it for the rest of them; the Piers Morgans, the Brady Campaign, Moms Demand Action… They are too intelligent, too well educated to believe the nonsense they are spouting. Whose agenda are they pushing so hard? Can it really just be all that sweet, tasty Bloomberg money?
Sure, context matters. But that cuts both ways. How many times do we have to hear the ridiculous comparison of murder rates between Washington D.C. and nearby Fairfax County? Fairfax is one of the richest counties in the country and has a lower population density and an older, better educated population than D.C. Yet we’re told that the difference has everything to do with gun control laws and nothing to do with demographics.
Suicide attempts are more often than not impulsive acts made quickly as a result of a severe but temporary crisis. Compared to other common methods of suicide (pills, hanging, slit wrists, etc.) guns are much, much more effective at killing one’s self and rarely allow for regret or second thoughts. In one study of non-lethal suicide attempts, not a single one of the subjects attempted suicide again over the following two years. Sure, if someone really wants to die they will find a way, but the research suggests that most people who fail a suicide attempt don’t try to do so again. Keeping guns away from people with suicidal thoughts pushes them towards less lethal suicide methods that (hopefully) will fail and allow them to live and see the errors in their thinking.
About 100,000 people per year die in hospitals from preventable medical errors.
Ban hospitals! Hey, if we can save just one child’s life, it will be worth it!
Then perhaps you can explain why the suicide rates for Japan and South Korea are so high in spite of a low gun ownership rate. It can be argued that people who try less effective means of suicide aren’t really serious, which is why they don’t do it again once they survive, but for people who really want to end it, if they can’t find a gun, they may do as the Japanese do and go leap off a tall building, take poison, or throw themselves in front of a truck or train or touch a third rail.
I can add a sample of the faulty gun-banners logic to your post:
Suicide is considered a sin by Christians, and is therefore discouraged in their doctrine.
Suicide is not considered a sin by atheists, who do not believe in any afterlife.
Therefore, the more atheists in society, the more suicides.
So we need to ban atheism. Or at least lock all atheists up in “protective custody” on suicide watch.
Makes as much sense as the Harvard anti-gun “research” report.
If you have an unexplained automobile accident, that is not a suicide right!? If you can’t swim, but get drunk and go swimming anyway, that’s and accident right!? I think you get my point!
Does it count as suicide if you die fighting for your inalienable rights against a repressive government?
So, I should allow my rights to be restricted or all out banned on the off chance that maybe it will keep someone who wants and chooses to end their life from doing so…?
Nah, I’m good.
As one who had a college friend commit suicide with a gun, I want to tell his story. This was after college, he had graduated and taken a job as a teacher in Phoenix, and started a family. He had no gun so had to wait the Arizona 15 day waiting period to get possession. The 15th day he picked up his pistol, parked against the sky harbor airport fence in the industrial zone, and shot himself in the head. This is the way minds work. If they have to steal a gun, wait 15 days, or throw themselves off the nearest bridge, if they want to die they will find a way. There is no stopping them, even if one could wave a magic wand and make all gunpowder vanish instantly. There are still lots of bridges and tall buildings to jump off of. Blaming the implement is the worst sort of insanity and claptrap, on a par with wanting to tear down all buildings because sometimes people jump or fall off of them. People committed suicide plenty before guns were invented, and they will continue to do so, no matter what laws get passed. What does a man who has decided to die have to fear from LAWS?
I’ll kick some money to a leftist foundations that studies the effectiveness of other suicide methods. On themselves.
Just tell them that Obama’s ordered it and they’ll gladly do it, just like any fanatic cultist.
Legalize assisted suicide. Real simple.
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