The US Politics |OT|

[jason1637]

sundin13 said:

jason1637 said:

1/2. No they don't. "Fifty percent of Americans who commit suicide do so with a gun. In our hypothetical, we assume that figure is just 9 percent — the average level of those four other Western countries. We then assumed the remaining 41 percent would try to commit suicide by other methods, such as suffocation or poisoning. Because none of these methods is as lethal as a gun, fewer people would succeed at committing suicide than if they used firearms. Of course, in reality, it’s possible some people in this 41 percent would not attempt suicide otherwise; we assume they all do to keep our estimate conservative."

The 9% makes sense since they just averaged other western countries but the 41 percent number is totally random.

As for lethality the report fails to adress the different type of guns used and what area of the body si shot. http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods/statistics-most-lethal-methods This is a list of the most lethal methods. Shotgun shot to the head is #1 but shotguns are by far the least common method used to comitt sucide. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1350343/pdf/amjph00246-0074.pdf. The use of Cyanide and a general shot the head would come in second. But getting hit by a train and using explosives come pretty close. The report failed to address these methods too.

3/4. The study that accounts for youth fails to take into account accidents. The generla population study I can't read unless i pay a fee but i'm not gonna do that.

I have looked some up and what i've found is that stricter gun laws reduce suicides by firearms. That's pretty obvious but I have yet to find anything about general suicide rates.

I have provided a rebuttal. If you take away the guns you're just taking away one of the many tools available. The emotions that lead someone to commit sucide is still there. Here is an article that explains why you can't properly relate gun ownership to suide because we we don't know who has guns or not since there's no gun registry or gun purchase documentation.

https://mises.org/wire/more-evidence-guns-dont-cause-suicide

Ther is also another study that shows that stricter gun laws don't show overall decrease in risk of suicide rates in a population.https://www.nap.edu/read/10881/chapter/9

1) They have their methodology linked within the article which explains in detail what they did with that other 41%. tldr version: They used two calculations. The first was applying suicide attempt percentages to that 41%. The second accounted for seriousness of attempt by applying percentages of only successful suicide attempts. It is not "totally random".

2) Lethality is addressed through the above. They addressed the lethality of the means that people actually use to commit suicide and also included an "Other" section which accounts for the lethality of all niche methods. The reason you don't see a specific category for "Cyanide poisoning" is twofold. One is that this is included in the overall poisoning statistics and two is that it doesn't seem to be very common. The report did not "fail to address" this stuff. It addressed it, but it just wasn't very important.

3) I struggle to understand what point you are trying to make by continually bringing up "accidents". These are different statistics so I'm not sure why you think them "taking it into account" would change anything.

4) Again, you not reading it is not an argument.

5) I largely agree with the points made in in that NAP review. To borrow the summary provided:

1. States, regions, and countries with higher rates of household gun ownership have higher rates of gun suicide. There is also cross-sectional, ecological association between gun ownership and overall risk of suicide, but this association is more modest than the association between gun ownership and gun suicide; it is less consistently observed across time, place, and persons; and the causal relation remains unclear.

2. The risk of suicide is highest immediately after the purchase of a handgun, suggesting that some firearms are specifically purchased for the purpose of committing suicide.

3. Some gun control policies may reduce the number of gun suicides, but they have not yet been shown to reduce the overall risk of suicide in any population.

Point one and two were largely part of my argument from the beginning. Point three largely addresses the need for additional research on gun control measures which are focused on suicide prevention. As your other source notes, "gun control" could mean a lot of things, so a more specific focus is needed in order to address the question. Again, to take a summary from the NAP review:

"Suicide prevention has rarely been the basis for public support of the passage of specific gun laws, but effects on suicide rates could be an unintended by-product of such laws, and the effects of different firearms policy interventions on suicide remain poorly understood. Thus, the committee recommends further studies of the link between firearms policy and suicide."

But that review is almost fifteen years old now and additional research has been done. I already posted several articles discussing this from after this review was completed, but I will post one more:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4566524/

This article discusses the impact of four different laws (waiting periods, universal background checks, gun locks, and open carrying regulations) on suicide rates and finds that all four laws were associated with a lower overall suicide rate (though the relationship was weaker for waiting periods).

Note: Three additional laws were analyzes under this article with similar conclusions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25880944

1. The number is random. In their mythology the only state how many people would live by failing while using other methods. They fail to mention the 41% statistic in their methodology. Also since people don't register gun purchases or ownerships the report they used for gun ownership by state is not fully accurate.

2. Well they mention that 20% would be other methods. That's a pretty big and important percentage for them not to break down.

3/4. You posted a statistic of kids aged 10-19 committing suicide with household guns. There's a good possibility that a good chunk of these could have been accidents. The report you posted pertaining to this could have been misleading for not seperating accidents and actual sucide attempts.

5.Gun control could mean different things but the report analyzes over 11 studies of gun control laws and mention 3 others legislation and they still concluded that gun laws reduce gun sucide but there is no evidence to show that they reduce the total amount of sucide in a population.

6. This does not really prove much besides that some states have lower rates and some have higher. Yeah some states with stricter gun laws show lower rates but it's important to look at these rates before and after these laws were passed.

California

Firearm registration law that went into effect 2011. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&division=6.&title=4.&part=6.&chapter=6.&article=2.

Assault weapon law that mostly expanded the definition of these weapons and but restrictions for those that are in or served in the military. The law wne into effect 2011.http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&division=6.&title=4.&part=6.&chapter=6.&article=2.

Another Assault weapon law that expanded previous laws to ban more guns.Some parts went into effect later in 2016 and other parts early 2018. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1135
Now here is California's sucide rate over the last few years https://www.livestories.com/statistics/california/suicide-deaths-mortality.

Illinois

A law requiring background checks to sell guns from 2012. http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1657&ChapAct=430%26nbsp%3BILCS%26nbsp%3B65%2F&ChapterID=39&ChapterName=PUBLIC%2BSAFETY&ActName=Firearm%2BOwners%2BIdentification%2BCard%2BAct%2E

These laws banned some guns and attachments.They went into effect in 2015. http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/documents/072000050K24-1.htm http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=072000050K24-2

Here is their sucide rates https://www.livestories.com/statistics/illinois/suicide-deaths-mortality

Btw i picked these states because California had a yes for all the gun laws in the link you provided and Illinois had a yes for 3/4 guns laws. If I have tim I can do it for other states. But yeah the point i'm making is that these states have a lower suicide rates even before some gun legislation were initiated.