Abraham wrote:I think it was Mark Twain who said something along the lines of: There are liars, darn (cleaned up) liars and statistics.
The author was going by statistics citing states with stringent gun laws having very low suicide by gun cases.
He stated suicidal thoughts are often very transitory, lasting a day or a week at most, but if guns come into the equation the suicidal person is most likely going to be successful in killing himself as guns are highly efficient.
His logic was the non-gun owning suicidal person may take more time to work out a plan to kill himself and often by the time the plan has been thought out, he decides to not kill himself after all.
Perhaps, in some measure he's right, but why should us non-suicidal folks, (in my opinion the majority) be left without that highly efficient means he's so against, by which to defend ourselves? (but, according to him the need to defend ourselves is overblown, cuz, hey, statistically it hardly ever occurs, certainly not often enough to justify owning guns conveniently forgetting that when it DOES happen, it aint just a statistic...)
Yes, he cited other categories of the death of innocents by firearm, but the leading candidate for his anti-gun stance is overwhelmingly in regard for the suicidal among us.
Why should a few (statistically speaking) mentally ill folk be held in higher regard than the rest of us who aren't mentally ill?
I don't get it.
Well, yes, places with lower availability of guns have lower gun suicide rates. This is a lot like observing that towns with only single story buildings have very few suicidal jumps from skyscrapers.
Neither of these speaks to the conclusion that the observer wants you to reach if you're among the "logically challenged": that the actual suicide rate is lower.
The rope-a-dope "experts" who play these misleading games hope that their readers will jump to the factually incorrect conclusion they've led them to without either recognizing the logical gap or checking on the facts. Sadly, they're often successful. Similar tactics were used successfully in the last presidential election.
Bobcat's post which provided the statistics on the suicide rates in the U.S. and Japan should put this issue in perspective. It's true that Japan, with almost no access to guns (except for criminal gangs who - gasp! - don't obey the law) has an almost infinitesimal gun suicide rate. However, their people kill themselves at about twice the rate people in the U.S. do.
The fact is that folks who have decided to kill themselves will do so with whatever means available, and it's not at all difficult. The argument that methods other than firearms are so much harder or less sure that the impulse will pass before the individual can solve the issues involved is completely spurious.
According to the
NY Times, here's how the Japanese do it:
"Because gun ownership is severely restricted in Japan, many Japanese resort to throwing themselves in front of trains, hanging themselves, jumping off cliffs or overdosing, the police say. "
None of these methods is more difficult, more time consuming, or less lethal than a suicide by firearm.
Where there's a will, there's a way.