Gun Laws Associated With Lower Suicide Rates

[SecularMotion]

A new study has found that four gun laws are significantly associated with lower rates of firearm suicide.

Researchers gathered data on the presence or absence of four firearm laws in each state: waiting periods for gun purchases, background checks for purchase or licensing, hand gun locks, and restrictions on the open carrying of handguns. Then they collected the data on gun suicide rates in each state. The study is in The American Journal of Public Health.

After controlling for population density, race and ethnicity, education, poverty and age, they found that each of the four laws was associated with a lower rate of suicide by gun as well as a lower overall rate of suicide.

In 11 states with waiting periods, the longer the waiting period, the lower the gun suicide rate. Compared with states without the laws, background checks were associated with a 53 percent lower gun suicide rate, gun locks with a 68 percent lower rate, and restrictions on open carrying a 42 percent lower rate.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/gun-laws-associated-with-lower-suicide-rates/?_r=0

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

1. seems irrelevant if...

...they used other means, any stats on that?

[maxsolomon]

2. Firearms faciliate impulsive suicides

Do you dispute this?

[jonno99]

3. "Firearms faciliate impulsive suicides" - Well so do rope & automobiles for that matter.

If the person commits suicide by some other means, you can't really say that "gun laws" were effective.

Which is why the previous poster asked if the (potential) victims used other means to commit suicide; were any stats on that provided?

[TeddyR]

4. Yeah, I certainly dispute your statement

Unsupported by any facts. I've never seen any study that indicates any firearm "facilitated" an "impulsive suicide." At first blush that strikes me as a silly statement. But happy to review any support you might have.

Note that this is another of the studies that applies numerous "controls" that have who knows what impact and whether those controls are even the correct ones (if any) to apply:

After controlling for population density, race and ethnicity, education, poverty and age, they found that each of the four laws was associated with a lower rate of suicide by gun as well as a lower overall rate of suicide

On edit, I wanted to note that I am not a fan of open carry laws. I also think that a responsible gun owner with children in the house (including teens) should keep any firearm secured in a safe or with a trigger lock, though I do not support mandatory trigger locks (which would be unenforceable in any event). In fact, there is simply no way to determine if a trigger lock law has any impact whatsoever on suicide rates since there is no way to determine the percentage of gun owners who comply with a trigger lock law.

On second edit, what the hell do open carry laws have to do with suicide rates? That is a ridiculous comparison.

[maxsolomon]

8. Its anecdotal. I'm not defending the link made in the study.

All the suicides I have known have used firearms. None left a note, none of their loved ones had any idea why or any clue that they were suicidal.

Are firearms the leading method of suicide in America, or not?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. IIRC firearms account for...

...about 40% of suicides. What are you getting at?

[maxsolomon]

11. 53.7% per

http://www.addictdepression.com/suicide-methods/ , which makes it the "most popular".

Less
Access
To
Firearms
Means
Fewer
Suicides
By
Firearms
And
(Maybe)
Less
Suicides
Overall

I fail to see why this is contentious. Absent a firearm, suicide becomes more difficult, and requires more planning. People don't just pick another method at random - they pick the easiest method at hand.

[beardown]

12. When you use a gun you are serious about committing suicide.

While I understand that some individuals will change their mind about committing suicide at the moment if they don't find a close by method to commit their suicide, I don't think that most will say finding a tall building or car or bottle full of pills is too difficult and skip it if they don't find a gun.

You yourself use (Maybe) in your column sentence so we aren't too far apart and neither of us seems to be so ideologically driven to discuss this in absolutes.

Booze has killed countless more people than civilian guns and the experiment to deal with the problem by banning the item, instead of dealing directly with the problem gave us a huge spike in murders and established the modern edition of the mobs. The second great prohibition on non-Pharma drugs initiated a second surge in killings and put so much money onto the street that it enabled every gang in the USA to be able to afford gun arsenals which kind of brings us back full circle to the current topic.

I believe every dollar spent on providing a better mental health support system will be vastly superior to every dollar spent on banning guns when it comes to suicide prevention in particular and gun violence in general. Not saying you said to ban guns by the way. Getting more funding for mental health support is going to be hard. Getting rid of guns in the USA within two generations is almost impossible. I vote (literally) for trying the hard solution and not the almost impossible one.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

14. I stand corrected

I should have remembered my own post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=174086
...which noted "In 2013, a gun was used in 21,175 of 41,149 total suicides."

That's 51.459%.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. there will ALWAYS be an "EASIEST" method n/t

[branford]

10. Correlation does not equal causation.

It's a common problem with a lot of these purported firearm"studies."

Ironically, the authors found that waiting periods were not associated with a lower overall suicide rate. Does that mean gun controllers will now concede that waiting periods are effectively worthless "feel good" laws, particularly as applied to people who already own firearms?

Since the actual full study in unavailable for review, I'm also most curious how one controls for "population density, race and ethnicity, education, poverty and age" in research concerning guns laws and suicide. It certainly sounds like they "controlled" the data until it confirmed their preconceived notions.

Significantly, the NYT's blog also indicated that the "authors acknowledge that they were unable to account for other variables that could be relevant, including religiosity and prevalence of mental illness among others."

I would really like to know how a study concerning suicide rates did not, or could not, account for prevalence of mental illness?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

5. I'm unclear on exactly what you mean

Could you be a bit more precise, please?

[ileus]

7. Those are good acceptable suicides...

[ileus]

6. No OC = less suicide....Humm...Already figured this story was a crock...

but that "stat" proves it.

[benEzra]

13. Ummm, Australia's suicide rate is *higher* than ours.

That means that some of the harshest gun laws in the entire developed world didn't drop the suicide rate...even though Americans work longer hours with less time off, and have poorer access to mental health care.

Remember, Australian gun laws are so harsh that they would get a lot of *Brits* thrown in prison. That Australia's suicide rate is higher than ours says a lot about just how irrelevant harsh gun-owner restrictions are to the suicide rate.

Then there's Japan, whose suicide rate is so high that their combined violent death rate (murder/suicide) is almost *twice* ours, at last count (28ish/100K vs 16/100K if I remember correctly).