The second amendment of the constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. As the specter of gun violence continues in our workplaces, roads and schools, the question keeps arising: do guns keep you safe, or just increase the level of violence?
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Access to Guns Increase Risk of Suicide
- From Freedom States Alliance
By Freedom States Alliance - Working to Prevent Gun Violence
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Means matter?
Not really. While the success rate of different suicide methods is not in doubt the fact remains that if you are using pills or cutting to try and kill yourself, you're not all that serious about suicide. I would love to see a link the the research that actually shows even a medium correlation between gun ownership and suicide risk. The biggest study on this at your means matter site classifies New Hampshire as being a low gun prevalence state. This shows that their method of collecting data was flawed, to say the least.
- ravenshrike
September 5, 2008 9:14AM
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Causation vs. correlation
Many suicide attempts are not really meant to end a life, rather they are a call for help. These people typically don't pick a reliable method. Most people who pick a gun mean to die--If a firearm were not easily available, they would pick another effective method.
Another aspect of this is a fairly significant difference in philosophy, separate from the gun issue--Self-reliance vs. dependence on authority. The idea that because I may harm myself I should be prevented from doing something reinforces dependence. Letting me judge the risks myself and make my own decisions is self-reliance.
- sevesteen
September 5, 2008 10:18AM
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No Correlation
Access to guns may increase the likelihood that a committed suicidal person will choose that method over another, but it does not affect the suicide rate over all. An example is Japan, where the rate of gun ownership is less than 1% but the suicide rate per 100,000 population in 2005 was more than double that of the US.
Source: World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/index.html
- hecate
September 5, 2008 5:21PM
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