Suicide without a gun...

[follower of Christ]

Suicide And Firearms

It has long been the practice of anti-gun groups and elements of the media to lump firearm suicides, homicides and accidents--whose causes are separate and distinct, and must be in order to be addressed as such--in order to scare the public with alarming statistics. Anti-gun advocates, including members of the public health community, recently have taken to combining suicide and homicide figures in the U.S. This allows them to conceal the decline in U.S. homicide rates (and to exaggerate the so-called "societal costs" of gun ownership). They have done this more particularly in the last few years while the U.S. homicide rate has been declining (despite a 100% increase in handgun ownership since the 1970s). But then, inconsistently, when comparing the U.S. to Europe, they only compare the homicide rates. They never use the combined homicide-suicide figure--because it would refute their entire argument; and show that despite Europe's harsh anti-gun laws, its homicide-suicide combined rates are higher than that of the U.S.1

Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between firearms and suicide? Nearly everything gets blamed for suicide at one time or another--love, hate, religion, pain, boredom, fear, shame, guilt, alcoholism, drug addiction, family dissolution, loss of a job, a new job, the news media, music, the time of year, terminal illness, old age and even the weather. In the 1930s, a moody Hungarian song called Gloomy Sunday was said to have been the trigger for almost as many suicides in Europe and the U.S. as the Great Depression.2

The majority of firearm-related deaths that occur each year in the United States are suicides, not homicides. The methods employed by individuals to commit suicide vary over time and by culture.3 For example, supposedly "gunless" Europe has a suicide rate that equals or exceeds the combined American homicide and suicide rates.4 5 6 Worldwide, suicide rates vary from 1.66 per 100,000 persons in Kuwait to 40.0 in Estonia. Firearm suicide rates range from 0.02 in the Republic of Korea to 5.78 in Finland and 7.35 in the United States. The proportion of suicides committed with a firearm varies from 0.2% in Japan to 61% in the United States. The firearm suicide rate exceeds the non-firearm rate only in the United States.7

A discussion of suicide involves many issues.8 If the issue is firearms, the first question to be addressed is "Do firearms cause suicide?" If firearms do not cause suicide but are merely implements utilized to accomplish the act, implements for which others would be substituted if firearms were not available, then it can be said fairly that the use of firearms in suicide is not relevant to the debate over firearm laws, rules and regulations.9

The second question, which would follow a finding that firearms do cause suicide, is "Do restrictive firearm laws reduce suicide rates?" This question was addressed in the well-known 1975 study by Douglas R. Murray at the University of Wisconsin, "Handguns, Gun Control Laws and Firearm Violence." The study concluded that "it seems quite unlikely that the relative availability of handguns plays a significant part in explaining why some states have higher rates of acts of violence associated with firearms than others." The Murray study included data on homicide, aggravated assault, robbery and suicide.10 11

Some would suggest that the rate of suicide may indeed be higher among firearm owners than non-owners. Gun owners are notably self-reliant and exhibit a willingness to take definitive action when they believe it to be in their own self-interest. Such action may include ending their own life when the time is deemed appropriate. Such a hypothesis has been supported by Professor Gary Kleck in criticizing the 1992 study by Kellermann, et al. "The Presence and Accessibility of Firearms In the Homes of Adolescent Suicides." Kleck contends that "the study's main flaw is its failure to control for preexisting psychological differences between gun owners and non-owners."12

Members of the anti-gun public health community have written numerous articles that seek to blame an increase in suicide among young American males upon increased gun availability. They fail to tell their readers that while suicide among American males aged 15 to 24 increased 7.4% during 1980-1990, the increase in England was more than 10 times greater (78%)13, with car exhaust poisoning being the leading method of suicide in a nation where gun ownership is severely restricted.

Gun owners should be aware of basic concepts and available data on suicide and firearms in order to be able to counter anti-gun propaganda that appears in the media and elsewhere. "Suicide is a serious issue. It deserves serious, scholarly discussion, rather than use as a political football by unscrupulous propagandists grasping at any opportunity to make a case for their preordained agenda."14

1 Kates, Don B., "Gun Laws Around the World: Do They Work?" October 1997 American Guardian, page 48.

2 "One every twenty minutes." Medical World News, April 7, 1967.

3 For international data on suicide, see The United Nations Demographic Yearbook, published annually.

4 Kates, Don B., 1991. "Gun rights &-- one can't compare gun crimes in differing cultures." Handguns for Sport and Defense, May 14-

5. Also see "International Rise in Suicide" in Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Statistical Bulletin, 48:4-7.

6 A table with suicide rates from two different data sources appears on page 47 of the 25 April 1997 draft of the United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation, prepared by the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division, United Nations Office at Vienna. For a commentary on this draft, see Krug, Alan S., "UN Study to Promote Outlawing Firearms" in the July 1997 Outdoor News, page 8.

7 Krug, E.G., Powell, K.E., and Dahlberg, L. 1996. Firearms Mortality in 36 countries. Centers for Disease Control/NCIPC, Atlanta.

8 For a recent update on empirical findings and theory in suicidology by 45 contributors, see "Assessment and prediction of suicide," edited by Ronald W. Maris, Alan L. Berman, John T. Maitsberger and Robert I. Yufit. Guilford Press, New York, 1992.

9 Several studies in the public health field have argued that suicide is linked to the presence of firearms in the home. These include (1) Rich, C. L. et al. 1990. Guns and suicide: possible effects of some specific legislation. American Journal of Psychiatry, 147:342-346; (2) Brent, D. A. et al. 1991. The presence and accessibility of firearms in the homes of adolescent suicides. Journal of American Medical Association, 266(2989-2985; and (3) Kellermann, A. L. et al. 1992. Suicide in the home in relationship to gun ownership. New England Journal of Medicine, 327:467-472. All have been subject to serious challenge by other researchers.

10 Murray, Douglas R. 1975. Handguns, gun control laws and firearm violence. Social Problems, 25(1):81-93.

11 A comment by David Lester of the Center for the Study of Suicide in Blackwood, NJ and Antoon A. Leenaars, published in the Canadian Journal of Criminology, argued that in the first eight years following the enactment of Canada's new restrictive firearm law in 1977, ". . . the firearms legislation in Canada in 1977 was followed by a decreasing rate of suicide by firearms and a decreasing percentage of suicides by firearms without there being any increase in suicide by all other methods." However, analysis of their data reveals that while the percentage of firearms utilized in suicides decreased relative to the benchmark calculated for the eight years preceding the law, the average annual suicide rate increased by 10.5 percent, from 4.27 per 100,000 population to 4.72. Thus, their conclusion does not seem to be supported by their data. See "Gun control and rates of firearms violence in Canada and the United States: A comment," Canadian Journal of Criminology, October 1994.

12 See the criticisms expressed by Kleck and others in the correspondence section of the December 24, 1992, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

13 Hawton, Keith, "By Their Own Young Hand," 304 British Medical Journal, 1000, 1992.

14 Kates, Don B., et al., "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?," Tennessee Law Review, 1995. 62(3): 513-596.

 

[GojuBrian]

How about this!!!

Drew does not have to have a gun!! We who so choose, can!!

settled.......

 

[GojuBrian]

China has some of the highest suicide rates in the world!!

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007 ... 095710.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... class.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

WHOA!!!!! Are guns legal in these countries??????

 

[Ramsey]

I am against gun control in most cases, but I disagree with you on this.

What you are not taking into account is that guns make committing suicide a lot easier. Most people who commit suicide are deeply depressed, and are probably thinking about killing themselves even though they may not be planning to go through with it. Having access to a gun may make the decision to commit suicide easier. There are probably a large number of people that did not commit suicide because they did not have access to a gun, and you won't be able to find that in any statistics.

Would you give a depressed person a gun? I wouldn't. In the military if you are diagnosed with depression you are kept away from weapons for awhile.

 

[GojuBrian]

Would you give a depressed person a gun? I wouldn't. In the military if you are diagnosed with depression you are kept away from weapons for awhile.

I believe they keep them away from more than just weapons. :D

 

[jasoncran]

common sense, i have wife that has bi-polar, therefore i wont buy a gun. That shouldnt stop brian who lives in another state from buying one.

 

[GojuBrian]

It won't. :D

Shouldn't stop you either. Keep it up and safe.

 

[Drew]

A discussion of suicide involves many issues.8 If the issue is firearms, the first question to be addressed is "Do firearms cause suicide?" If firearms do not cause suicide but are merely implements utilized to accomplish the act, implements for which others would be substituted if firearms were not available, then it can be said fairly that the use of firearms in suicide is not relevant to the debate over firearm laws, rules and regulations.9

This is simply incorrect thinking as has already been shown. In case there are readers out there who do not see the problem in the above line of argument, I will repeat the counterargument.

This statement seems very sensible - why blame the "instrument" or "tool" for some action - a homicide or a suicide - whose "cause" rather obviously lies in the mind of a disturbed individual? Like some other common sense notions, it gains its purchase through being a sensible answer to a bad question, a question that is never critically challenged. We are inclined to not "question the question" to which "the gun is not to blame, the person is to blame" is an answer and we are therefore sold - the gun is not "to blame" for the suicide or the homicide.

Such is the appeal of such a line of argument - the problem with it is "one level removed" and therefore not easily glimpsed. But, of course, the underlying premise which informs the implied question "Who is to blame, the gun or the person"? is flawed. And therefore, while it seems eminently sensible to conclude that inanimate objects like guns can hardly be to blame for homicides and suicides, the real issue here is not where "intent" is vested but rather how the gun might function as an enabler.

Hopefully no one in this debate believes that guns (or other weapons) possess evil intent - we all know that this is not so. As has been explained in grisly technical detail in other posts, the issue is the degree to which the availability of the gun empowers the agent that does have all the intent - the human being - to turn that intent into a tragic reality.

And, as any student of the scientific method will know, one cannot simply assume the "substitution hypothesis" - that people will find another way to commit suicide. I intend to present evidence that this is simply not what the evidence suggests.

 

[Drew]

How about this!!!

Drew does not have to have a gun!! We who so choose, can!!

settled.......

This is not the point. In a forum like this, we are not debating "what the present state of law" is. We are talking about the wisdom of gun control laws.

And, as a side benefit, I expect that open-minded readers are learning from all of us about what constitutes a valid way to argue a point, and what does not.

 

[follower of Christ]

Gun control proponents often claim that suicide rates are driven by firearms availability.
For example, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence promotes the “guns cause suicide†hypothesis. They note that nearly 17,000 people kill themselves with firearms each year, concluding:
Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year. The Brady Campaign fights for sensible gun laws to protect you, your family, and your community.
If guns cause suicide, international organizations must have some data proving this claim. Or do they?
The United Nations (UN) recently reaffirmed its commitment to global civilian disarmament, which began in the mid-1990s, as a way of ensuring worldwide peace and prosperity:
[T]he international community is more than ever aware of the importance of such practical disarmament measures, especially with regard to the growing problems arising from the excessive accumulation and uncontrolled spread of small arms and light weapons, including their ammunition, which pose a threat to peace and security and reduce the prospects for economic development in many regions, particularly in post-conflict situations…
The Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland publishes an annual report entitled Small Arms Survey. This organization doesn’t support civilian firearms ownership. Their Mission page states:
The proliferation of small arms and light weapons represents a grave threat to human security. The unchecked spread of these weapons has exacerbated inter- and intra-state conflicts, contributed to human rights violations, undermined political and economic development, destabilized communities, and devastated the lives of millions of people.
The 2003-2005 and 2007 editions of Small Arms Survey contain estimates of civilian firearms ownership rates in selected countries. The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) tabulates suicide rates by country (suicides per 100,000 population).
Since the WHO hasn’t updated suicide reports for many countries since the 1990s, and the Small Arms Survey hasn’t surveyed all UN member countries, cross-referencing produced a final list of 47 countries with both firearms ownership estimates and relatively recent suicide data. These were then divided into quintiles.
The first chart shows results when sorted by firearms ownership rates, expressed by Small Arms Survey as firearms per capita.

continued....
http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-G ... erspective

.

 

[follower of Christ]

Just browsing the web a bit this morning and found what I believe to be the single most ignorant statement i think Ive ever seen in my life..

Firearm suicide rates are strongly impacted by the rate of gun ownership

uh...duh....how can you kill yourself with a GUN if you dont HAVE a GUN.

And whats more than laughable is this is actually used as some logical argument against guns

Lets see if I can try this...
"vehicular suicide rates are strongly impacted by the rate of car ownership"
"Knife suicide rates are strongly impacted by the rate of knife ownership"
"drug suicide rates are strongly impacted by the rate of drug ownership"
"tablespoon suicide rates are strongly impacted by the rate of tablespoon ownership"

Yeah...gee...I guess we all need to live in straightjackets so we dont hurt ourselves

.

 

[Drew]

Gun control proponents often claim that suicide rates are driven by firearms availability.
For example, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence promotes the “guns cause suicide†hypothesis. They note that nearly 17,000 people kill themselves with firearms each year, concluding:
Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year. The Brady Campaign fights for sensible gun laws to protect you, your family, and your community......etc

This article misses the point. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the wisdom of controlling guns is not determined by looking for correlation between suicide rates and the application of gun control laws across a range of countries.

The problem of suicide is a mutli-variable problem. So failure to find a correlation of the form "Gun control always is accompanied by lower suicide rates across different countries" does not mean that suicide is not worsened in any given country through loose gun laws.

It is improper reasoning to conclude that guns cannot constitute an incremental risk to suicide because of a lack of correlation between suicide and gun access in a range of countries. There are too many confounding variables.

The proper question to ask is this: "Does suicide risk change with changes to gun ownership laws in a given cultural setting?"

 

[Drew]

From the Harvard School of Public Health:

It is intuitive to think that those who attempt suicide and live were less intent on dying than those who died by suicide. While seriousness of intent plays a role in severity of attempt and choice of suicide method (means), the relationship is not a straight-forward one. Many studies (some described below) find little relationship between intent and medical severity or between intent and choice of method. Other studies, however, do find a relationship (e.g., Townsend 2001, Hamdi 1991, Harriss 2005). One reason for the mixed results is that other factors also play a role, such as the availability and acceptability of methods and attempters' knowledge of the likely lethality of a given method. Many people who attempt suicide have inflated expectations about the lethality of common methods like poisoning and cutting.

Thirty patients who attempted suicide with motor vehicle exhaust were interviewed (Skopek 1998). Reasons given for choosing the method included availability, painlessness, and lethality. Suicide intent scores were not high, which was inconsistent with most patients being aware that the method was highly lethal. Relationship problems were the most frequent precipitating circumstance. Most attempters regretted the attempt. Survival was due largely to failure of the method or unexpected discovery rather than to patient factors.

- Sixty patients presenting to a large urban medical center for a suicide attempt completed questionnaires measuring the seriousness of their suicidal intent and other factors (Plutchik 1988). No relationship was found between level of intent and medical seriousness of the attempt.

- Among 268 self-poisoning patients in rural Sri Lanka, 85% cited easy availability as the basis for their choice of poison (Eddelston 2006). Patients had little knowledge about the lethality of the poison they chose. There was no evidence that attempters who used highly toxic poisons were more serious or deliberative in their attempt than those using less toxic poisons.

- Patients' expectation of the lethality of their attempt (as measured by the Beck Suicidal Intent Scale item 11) was not associated with observed medical severity in a sample of 173 attempters treated in an urban emergency department (Brown 2004). Only 38% of the patients were accurate in their expectations regarding severity; 32% were inaccurate, and 29% did not know whether what they did was likely to be lethal.

- A study of 33 people (mostly young men) who attempted suicide with a firearm and lived found that all used firearms obtained in their homes (Peterson 1985). When asked why a firearm was used, the answer given most often was, "Availability."

- A Houston study compared nearly-lethal suicide attempts with less-lethal attempts and found that expectation of dying, planning, impulsivity, and taking precautions against discovery were not associated with the medical severity of the attempt (Swahn 2001).

Intent is a complex matter and falls along a continuum. While some attempters are probably at the low end of the spectrum with very little intent to die, and others are at the high end, many fall into an ambivalent middle ground. Still others have high intent but only during very brief episodes. It is these latter two groups for whom reducing easy access to highly lethal methods of suicide is likely to be most effective in saving lives

 

[follower of Christ]

Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?

Chalk up another big win for the truth.
http://www.nrapvf.org/News/Article.aspx?ID=247

You’ve heard the bogus statistics, skewed studies and incompatible comparisons that the anti-gun lobby and the media elite endlessly repeat ad nauseum in their propaganda, which blames firearm freedom for violent crime.

* "A gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member, friend or acquaintance, than to be used to kill someone in self-defense."

* "Americans are more likely to be shot to death than people in the world’s other 35 richest nations."

* "Every day in America, 13 children are killed by guns, almost a classroom full of children every two days."

By drilling you with these anti-gun "statistics" until you can recite them in your sleep, they hope you’ll come to accept and expect them, like the morning sun in your window, or the drone of an air conditioner that you swiftly cease to hear.

But now, in an authoritative analysis of dozens of existing studies on the subject, Don Kates, a Yale-educated attorney who served as a professor at Stanford Law School, and Gary Mauser, a Canadian university professor and author, have shattered the anti-gunners’ elaborate façade into a thousand fragments of falsehood.

Their paper is entitled, "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence," and it was published this spring in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy--the nation’s most widely distributed law review, with 10,000 copies sent to federal judges and attorneys--where it’s likely to have a big impact on the national debate.

But you don’t have to sit on the federal bench to get your own copy. The paper is free. It’s available here for you to download. And it’s a "must read" for anyone who wants to defend firearm ownership with the most up-to-date and comprehensive international information available.

In their analysis, Kates and Mauser compared different countries, different population groups and different types of interpersonal violence, homicide and suicide throughout much of recorded history, and found that the old anti-gun axioms that you so often hear are false:

* More firearms do not equate to more homicide or more suicide.

* Fewer firearms do not equate to less homicide or less suicide.

In fact, more often than not, just the opposite is true.

The Non-Connection Between Guns and Death

You’ve probably heard Sarah Brady, the former head of Handgun Control, Inc., and now of the Brady Campaign, say, "If guns made people safer, America would be the safest nation on earth."

Since the early 1980s the u.s. gun-ban lobby has sponsored advertisements suggesting that firearms are uniquely available in the United States, and that as a result, the u.s. has a gun-homicide rate higher than the rest of the industrialized world.

As Kates and Mauser deftly point out, both assertions are false.

First of all, firearms are abundantly available and widely owned throughout much of Europe, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to high homicide or suicide rates.

To research that question, Kates and Mauser compiled statistics for the rates of murder and gun ownership for nations stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the Pacific.
*... almost no Russian
civilians owned
firearms--(but)
Russia had, and
continues to have,
by far the
highest murder rate
in the developed world.

The problem with many of the existing published studies, Kates explained, was that the raw numbers used in the existing studies were not published. So he and Mauser set out to get the raw numbers and analyze them personally.

"We were able to put together figures for nine European nations that had more than 15,000 firearms owned per 100,000 households, and we also had nine European nations that had less than 5,000 firearms owned per 100,000 households," Kates said.

"What we found was that the first group, with triple the rate of gun ownership, had one-third the homicide rate of the second group."

On the other hand, in Russia--where firearms had been under police-state control for decades--Kates and Mauser found an exceedingly violent society.

Although the Soviet communist regime tried to hide the problem from the rest of the world, the collapse of the Soviet Union exposed the truth: Despite those iron-fisted government controls on firearm ownership--almost no Russian civilians owned firearms--Russia had, and continues to have, by far the highest murder rate in the developed world.

Kates and Mauser write: "In the 1960s and early ’70s, the gunless Soviet Union’s murder rates paralleled or generally exceeded those of gun-ridden America. While American rates stabilized and then steeply declined, however, Russian murder increased so drastically that by the early 1990s the Russian rate was three times higher than that of the United States. Between 1998-2004 … Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates."

We see much the same thing in Luxembourg, where handguns are completely banned and firearm ownership of any kind is rare. Even though its (lawful) citizens are effectively disarmed, in 2002 Luxembourg had a murder rate nine times higher than in neighboring Germany--where firearms are legal and widely owned.

For any proponents of so-called "common-sense gun control" who fail to see the point, Kates and Mauser connected the dots even more clearly in their paper: "Individuals who commit violent crimes will either find guns despite severe controls or will find other weapons to use."



When Life Means Nothing, Laws Mean Even Less

Tragically, the same phenomenon seems to place suicide beyond the reach of anti-gun laws.

Citing studies of suicide in dozens of nations, Kates and Mauser point to comparison after comparison that shows no link between gun availability and suicide rates.

For example, Spain has 12 times the gun-ownership rate of Poland, yet Poland’s suicide rate is more than double that of Spain. Greece has triple the gun-ownership rate of the Czech Republic--and admittedly more gun-related suicide--yet the overall Czech suicide rate is nearly triple that of Greece. Similarly, Finland has over 14 times the gun-ownership rate of its southern neighbor Estonia, yet Estonia nonetheless has a much higher suicide rate than Finland.
* [N]either a majority, nor many, nor virtually any murderers are ordinary ‘law-abiding citizens.’ Rather, almost all murderers are extremely aberrant individuals with life histories of violence, psychopathology, substance abuse and other dangerous behaviors.

In the absence of firearms, suicidal people simply substitute other means. As evidence, Kates and Mauser point to two powerful examples.

In the 1980s, suicide among teenagers and young adults spiked in the u.s., and many blamed firearm availability for the increase. What they failed to mention was that suicide among young adults was rising throughout the developed world--regardless of gun availability--and in many places was rising far faster than in the u.s.

Among English youth, for example, suicide increased 10 times as fast as among American youth, yet the preferred method of suicide there was car exhaust asphyxiation.

Another tragic illustration involves suicide among young Indian women living on the island of Fiji. When these women marry, often to non-Indian men, they commonly go to live with their husbands’ extended families in less-than-friendly, if not openly antagonistic, circumstances. Perhaps as a result, they have a suicide rate many times higher than that of non-Indian Fijian women.

Guns are unavailable to these women, Kates and Mauser report, but that evidently makes no difference: Many still commit suicide--about 75 percent of them through hanging, and nearly all the rest by poisoning themselves with the herbicide Paraquat.

Giving Guns Magical Powers and Malevolence Toward Man

Another favorite fantasy of the gun haters is that firearms have some mystical power to transform otherwise lawful, peaceable people into murderers and maniacs.

To hear the gun-ban lobby tell the tale, it’s as if firearms were some sort of evil magic charm just waiting for humans to let down their guard so that they, the firearms, could turn the tables on us once and for all.

Firearms, they tell us, will turn family disagreements into shooting wars.

A gun kept in a closet as a defense against intruders, they say, will instead be used against a spouse in a moment of rage.

According to the Violence Policy Center, "the majority of homicide [occur] ... not as a result of criminal activity, but because of arguments between people who know each other."

But as Kates and Mauser point out in their study, "These comments … contradict facts that have so uniformly been established by homicide studies dating back to the 1890s that they have become ‘criminological axioms.’ … [N]either a majority, nor many, nor virtually any murderers are ordinary ‘law-abiding citizens.’ Rather, almost all murderers are extremely aberrant individuals with life histories of violence, psychopathology, substance abuse and other dangerous behaviors."

What’s more, as Kates and Mauser note, a major national, yearlong study on gun murders in U.S. homes between acquaintances found that the most common situation was one in which the victim and the perpetrator "knew one another because of prior illegal transactions."

Read between the lines and you’ll realize what that refers to: Drug pushers murdered by rivals or robbers. Gang members murdered by fellow gang members. Women murdered by stalkers or domestic abusers.

In any of these cases, as Kates and Mauser explain, the perpetrators are "all individuals for whom federal and state laws already prohibit gun possession."

Do Guns Reduce Crime? Or Does Crime Reduce Guns?

Although their data would support such a claim, Kates and Mauser don’t argue in their paper that firearm ownership is the cause of low crime rates in many European nations.

As they write in their paper, "It would be simplistic to assume that at all times and in all places widespread gun ownership depresses violence by deterring many criminals into nonconfrontation crime, [although] there is evidence that it does so in the United States …"

Instead, they maintain, with refreshing candor, that some European countries simply have low crime rates, and because of that, those countries never imposed anti-gun laws. So gun ownership is high, and crime is low--it’s just not necessarily low as a result.

As an illustration, Kates cites Norway: "The reason Norwegians have guns is for hunting. They don’t keep them for self-defense and they don’t need them--they have a low-crime country."

On the other hand, some European nations experiencing high levels of crime subsequently passed anti-gun laws--but those laws failed to have any effect on crime.

"The people you need to control are not going to obey the gun control laws," Kates explained. "And the people you don’t need to control, those are the ones who obey. So what you get is, you get either nothing, or you get worse results, with gun control."

In the final analysis, this paper places the burden of proof squarely on the shoulders of the proponents of anti-gun laws.

For, although higher rates of gun ownership may not necessarily reduce crime in all societies, in no case can it be demonstrated that higher gun ownership rates cause higher crime.

 

[follower of Christ]

Myth 3: The proliferation of guns is responsible for an increase in suicides.

The availability of guns is often presumed to increase the suicide rate. In fact, our suicide rates are higher than our homicide rates. Nonetheless, between 1974-1994, while the civilian gun stock increased 75 percent, the total suicide rate in this country fluctuated very little and amounted to 12 deaths per 100,000 persons in 1974 and 1994. Evidently, the remarkable increase in the number of guns in this country has not increased the rate of suicide.

If gun availability does influence suicide, one would have to explain why countries with strict gun control laws, such as West Germany, France, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway and Canada, have higher suicide rates than the U.S. If we group the suicides and homicides together as an indicator of handgun availability, the U.S. falls below the international median in this statistic. The view that gun availability has a direct effect on total suicide rates, here and abroad, is not supported by any empirical evidence or technically sound studies.

It is worth noting, however, that the rate of suicides committed with guns, or the gun suicide rate, increased slightly from 6.7 to 7.2 deaths per 100,000 persons in the last twenty years. Similarly, the percentage of suicides committed with guns increased slightly from 55.4 percent in 1974 to 60.3 percent in 1994. The slight increase in the rate and percentage of gun suicides demonstrates that increased gun availability does correlate with an increase in the number of suicides committed with guns. Additionally, nine of thirteen studies conducted between 1984 and 1993 also found a positive association between gun levels and the gun suicide rate. However, only one of the studies found a direct correlation between gun levels and the total suicide rate, and there is reason to believe that this study is flawed technically, having used an invalid method to measure gun availability. A study of state level data in 1990 also found a direct correlation between gun levels and gun suicides but not total suicides.

It should be reemphasized that the increases in the number of suicides committed with guns and the gun suicide rate represent firearms being chosen more often in suicides, and not an increase in total suicides. So, while people in this country are more frequently choosing firearms as the means of self-destruction, the number of total suicides remains relatively unchanged.

Sources: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). Don B. Kates Jr. and Gary Kleck, The Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence, (San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1997).

 

[follower of Christ]

Its pretty funny when antigun types want to talk numbers and statistics when it suits their purposes....but when presented with numbers and statistics suddenly the data isnt good enough ;)

 

[Drew]

Citing studies of suicide in dozens of nations, Kates and Mauser point to comparison after comparison that shows no link between gun availability and suicide rates.

Bad reasoning in relation to the matter at issue - as has already been shown.

In the absence of firearms, suicidal people simply substitute other means. As evidence, Kates and Mauser point to two powerful examples.

Maybe, but the overall picture is mixed at best. I have posted studies that did not find the subsitution effect.

Giving Guns Magical Powers and Malevolence Toward Man

Another favorite fantasy of the gun haters is that firearms have some mystical power to transform otherwise lawful, peaceable people into murderers and maniacs.

To hear the gun-ban lobby tell the tale, it’s as if firearms were some sort of evil magic charm just waiting for humans to let down their guard so that they, the firearms, could turn the tables on us once and for all.

Distortion and misrepresentation - no competent person would make such a claim that guns have "evil" intent or function in the manner characterized in this statement.

 

[Drew]

Its pretty funny when antigun types want to talk numbers and statistics when it suits their purposes....but when presented with numbers and statistics suddenly the data isnt good enough ;)

Tell us one case where I have critiqued the statistics without providing an associated explanation in which to ground that critique. In fact, unlike you, I have actually acknowledge data which challenges my overall position on this issue.

Be sure to let us know when you find a post in which I dismiss data without providing associated justification.

 

[follower of Christ]

Guns and suicide: International perspective
December 15, 2009

Gun control proponents often claim that suicide rates are driven by
firearms availability.

For example, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence [
http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence ] promotes the “guns
cause suicide†hypothesis. They note that nearly 17,000 people kill
themselves with firearms each year, concluding:

Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of
people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year. The
Brady Campaign fights for sensible gun laws to protect you, your
family, and your community.

If guns cause suicide, international organizations must have some data
proving this claim. Or do they?

The United Nations (UN) recently reaffirmed its commitment to global
civilian disarmament [
http://disarmament.un.org/vote.nsf/e9e0 ... 6e0a60/b...
], which began in the mid-1990s, as a way of ensuring worldwide peace
and prosperity:

[T]he international community is more than ever aware of the
importance of such practical disarmament measures, especially with
regard to the growing problems arising from the excessive accumulation
and uncontrolled spread of small arms and light weapons, including
their ammunition, which pose a threat to peace and security and reduce
the prospects for economic development in many regions, particularly
in post-conflict situations…

The Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland
publishes an annual report entitled Small Arms Survey. This
organization doesn’t support civilian firearms ownership. Their
Mission [ http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sa ... ssion.html
] page states:

The proliferation of small arms and light weapons represents a grave
threat to human security. The unchecked spread of these weapons has
exacerbated inter- and intra-state conflicts, contributed to human
rights violations, undermined political and economic development,
destabilized communities, and devastated the lives of millions of
people.

The 2003-2005 and 2007 editions of Small Arms Survey [
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sa ... books.html ]
contain estimates of civilian firearms ownership rates in selected
countries. The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) [
http://www.who.int/mental_health/preven ... eports/e...
] tabulates suicide rates by country (suicides per 100,000
population).

Since the WHO hasn’t updated suicide reports for many countries since
the 1990s, and the Small Arms Survey hasn’t surveyed all UN member
countries, cross-referencing produced a final list of 47 countries
with both firearms ownership estimates and relatively recent suicide
data. These were then divided into quintiles.

The first chart shows results when sorted by firearms ownership rates,
expressed by Small Arms Survey as firearms per capita.

Firearms versus Suicide, Sort by Firearms Ownership Rates
Quintile Nbr Countries Firearms Ave. Suicide Rate Ave.
1 10 0.019 14.2
2 9 0.062 12.3
3 9 0.119 9.4
4 9 0.172 10.1
5 10 0.432 13.4

Countries with the lowest rates of civilian firearms ownership had the
highest suicide rates. Countries with the highest firearms ownership
rates had the second highest suicide rates, followed by countries with
the second-lowest firearms ownership rates. This may suggest that
firearms increase lethality of suicide attempts, but it is also clear
that countries with the most restrictive gun laws also have the
highest rates of suicide. Countries with moderate firearms ownership
levels have the lowest suicide rates.
The second chart shows results when sorted by suicide rates.

Firearms versus Suicide, Sort by Suicide Rates
Quintile Nbr Countries Suicide Rate Ave. Firearms Ave.
1 10 4.2 0.140
2 9 7.6 0.100
3 9 11.4 0.278
4 9 14.7 0.145
5 10 21.7 0.157

Here, countries with the lowest suicide rates have the lowest firearms
ownership rates, but the lowest quintile has firearms ownership levels
only slightly less than countries with the highest suicide rates. This
suggests that firearms availability may have some impact upon suicide
rates, but countries with moderate suicide rates have the most gun
ownership, suggesting that other factors have at least as much
influence.

The disconnect between firearms ownership and suicide rates becomes
more apparent when displaying graphs for the entire 47-country panel.

(Note that for the two following graphs, the per capita firearms
ownership rates were multiplied by 10, in order to better see the
relative rates of firearms ownership relative to suicide rates, which
remain in suicides per 100,000 population.)

The first graph shows countries sorted by ascending firearms ownership
rates. The country with the lowest firearms ownership (Romania at .030
firearms per 10 civilians, suicide rate 11.3) has about the same
suicide rate as the country with the most firearms (U.S. at 9 firearms
per 10 civilians, suicide rate 11.0). As firearms ownership increases,
suicide rates vary widely, indicating little influence of firearms
availability on suicide.

http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/ ... A_Sort.jpg

When sorted by ascending suicide rates in the graph below, there again
appears to be little correlation between suicide and firearms
availability. Countries at both ends of the graph (lowest and highest
suicide rates) also have some of the lowest firearms ownership rates.

http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/ ... e_sort.jpg

The United States has the highest level of firearms ownership: 0.900
per capita. Of all countries included in the firearms inventory, the
U.S. had 22nd highest suicide rate. Of all countries surveyed in the
last 10 years by the WHO, the U.S. had the 40th highest suicide rate.

The correlation between civilian firearms ownership and suicide rates
is weak at best. While it remains possible that more suicides may have
occurred were firearms available, there clearly are other factors
driving the need to kill oneself than method.

When it comes to suicide, sufficient intent leads to “successfulâ€
conclusion.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.poli ... ff433a0bff

 

[follower of Christ]

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By the way, for the READERS, my goal here is to present evidence and data, not 'debate' a certain person here as I lost interest in that two days ago.

So I'll keep posting material for you READERS to consider and anyone who may be on my ignore list can do their best to explain away the facts as they see fit, but I am not responding to their posts because of previous problems.

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