manipulatedata wrote:
(it)... suggests (but does not prove).... suicides will occur without regard for the availability of guns. That is, individuals who wish to commit suicide will find an effective tool, whether or not guns are available.
It's funny how you portray yourself as mr rational data guy, but are way off on your cherry-picked data.
It is absolutely false to suggest that suicide or homicide rates remain the same whether or not guns are around (especially suicide, which is why I quoted you above). Easy access to quick (or popular) ways to kill oneself results in more suicides, PERIOD. Here are some NEW data points for you to plug into that non-emotional brain of yours, which will allow you to then re-calibrate that Spock-like rationality you seem to think you have (especially read the article on suicide, and you will see how dead wrong [no pun intended] you are on this topic)-
"More guns tend to mean more homicide.
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center assessed the literature on guns and homicide and found that there’s substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders. This holds true whether you’re looking at different countries or different states. Several Citations here:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html"
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"Other countries offer a road map. In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns. The “national firearms agreement,” as it was known, led to the buyback of 650,000 guns and to tighter rules for licensing and safe storage of those remaining in public hands.
The law did not end gun ownership in Australia. It reduced the number of firearms in private hands by one-fifth, and they were the kinds most likely to be used in mass shootings.
In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half"
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?src=mv&ref=general-------------
States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
Last year, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators (And found)...... States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths.
"Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48).”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/----------
And this, from an extremely enlightening article on suicide. Many people who are suicidal (as the article makes extremely clear), act impulsively and later regret their attempt, if, of course, they live and have a chance to regret it.. They often don't try again. So...... having guns in a house is an EXTREME risk for suicide, just as it is for other violent crimes: people get angry, people act impulsively and stupidly, and if a gun is nearby, they very well might use it on another or themselves, i.e., MORE GUNS = MORE VIOLENCE/MURDER/SUICIDE/DEATH:
"In a 2007 study that grouped the 15 states with the highest rate of gun ownership alongside the six states with the lowest (each group had a population of about 40 million), Hemenway and his associates found that when it came to all nonfirearm methods, the two populations committed suicide in nearly equal numbers. The more than three-times-greater prevalence of firearms in the “high gun” states, however, translated into a more than three-times-greater incidence of firearm suicides, which in turn translated into an annual suicide rate nearly double that of the “low gun” states. In the same vein, their 2004 study of seven Northeastern states found that the 3.5 times greater rate of gun suicides in Vermont than in New Jersey exactly matched the difference in gun ownership between the two states (42 percent of all households in Vermont opposed to 12 percent in New Jersey). From these and other such studies, the Injury Control Research Center has extrapolated that a 10 percent reduction in firearm ownership in the United States would translate into a 2.5 percent reduction in the overall suicide rate, or about 800 fewer deaths a year."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html?pagewanted=all