Indianapolis Mall Shooter Killed by Good Samaritan

I agree. 100%.

But THIS guy is a hero

 

You sure?

Firearms are the most common means of suicide in the United States, followed by suffocation and poisoning.
Means of Suicide | Suicide Prevention Resource Center

 

I agreeish, people who want to kill themselves will find a way. I do think there are cases where people have a lack of access to a gun may think twice about it due to most other methods having the instant ability to kill you like a gun can.

Like if you have to use a machete rather than shoot yourself I think you're going to think a lot harder about the decision to commit suicide.

 

I don't think anyone, or any study can know for sure, but if you are at the point of solving short term problems with a long-term solution, not sure that not having access to a gun makes a difference.

 

Can you substantiate this with facts?

 

So . . . the gun is just a coincidence?

 

No, he can't.

 

If it helps the understanding, bear in mind that conscripted troops during Revolutionary times on the British side were referred to as "Regulars" as compared to the "Militia" troops on the Colonial side. Yes, the word has multiple meanings both then and now, but as far as the wording of the Second Amendment the usage of "regulated" fairly obviously refers to the ability of the people to be well trained in the event of having a ready militia for conscription and national defense.

 

I would also add the probability of a "successful" suicide attempt is considerably higher when a firearm is used than when a person attempts to take his/her own life through other methods (poison, hanging, etc.).

 

Davis, did you look at the previous posts to put that in context? The OECD data shows that there are countries with much stricter gun control than the US that have higher suicide rates than the US. As PK pointed out, there are also countries that have strict gun control and have lower suicide rates than the US, although not that much lower at all. So there does not appear to be a correlation between availability of guns and suicide rate.

Guns might be the major avenue of suicide in the US, but it doesn’t automatically follow that removing the guns means those people will not commit suicide. According to the data, people apparently will find other means.

If availability of guns were the determining factor in suicide rates in a country, then Japan would have almost zero suicides.

PK, I don’t understand your comment at all. You even referenced the OECD data in a previous post.

 

He is correct. You can look the world wide murder and suicide rates an apply it to countries with and without gun access. Even the much cited Australia example, it initially reduced suicides but then they ticked back up. Because murder and suicide rates in Australia had already been dropping, they cannot attach statistical significance.

Our love of guns marketing campaigns are a separate issue.

 

It's more complicated than just looking at suicide rates by country. The socioeconomic differences may very well be a more fruitful avenue to investigate than guns, as I alluded to with the Asian countries.

In the US, guns have by far the highest success rate for suicide. They are also most often used in impulsive suicides. It stands to reason that less access to guns would result in fewer successful and impulsive suicides. I think the highly correlated US states' "suicide rate by gun ownership" may highlight this.

WaPo did an article on the possible impact of fewer guns based on suicide data from four very similar countries. It's an interesting read if you have access.

"Nobody knows what would happen if firearm availability in the United States resembled levels of other developed countries. But there’s widespread agreement among experts that the suicide rate would decline significantly. To illustrate this point, we calculated what would happen to the U.S. suicide rate if the percentage of suicides involving firearms were similar to that of four other Western countries (Australia, Canada, France and Britain) for which data is available.

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.

We calculate that the total suicide rate would decline by 20 to 38 percent, depending on the alternative methods used. (You can read more about our methodology, which was endorsed by three top suicide and guns experts.)"



https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/wonkblog/suicide-rates/

 

You are making an attribution fallacy / flawed inference. Your initial claim:

You are making the mistake of equivocating higher suicide rates with lower gun ownership - a false attribution. Nobody is claiming that eliminating guns will eliminate suicide. Eliminating guns would, however, reduced suicide rates in the U.S. (see post 152).

 

This was a more thorough explanation, thanks.

 

Australia implemented their buyback program in 1997. The rate then was 23.7. In 2020, the rate was 18.6 which represents a 22% decrease. Roughly equivalent to the WaPo hypothetical.

Note that in the US, men were way more likely to commit suicide via gun than women. I find it interesting that the main contributor to Australia's reduction was in men while the women stayed somewhat stable.



Deaths by suicide over time - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare