Gun Ownership Tied to Three-Fold Increase in Suicide Risk

[jmra]

I read this as: "Gun ownership tied to Three-fold increase in suicide success rate".

Makes sense to me.

The scary statistic for me - and you guys can help me figure out how to rationalize is the one that says owning a firearm in the home puts you at substantially greater risk of firearm related injury. It was so significant that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends removing guns from the home if you have kids... (1992 and 2000 studies).

So then I think that if we excluded people who improperly stored firearms, we'd be OK... Apparently that isn't the case either - odds are almost twice as likely:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/1 ... ull#ref-30

Again, walk me through it so I can counter-argue... Because I'm not sure that I can, other than on the basis that I don't live my life to minimize risk every second of the day.

I had always heard that compared to swimming pools and other things that kids get hurt/killed with, guns accidents are actually fairly low. Not sure of the numbers, but I don't see those people proposing to ban swimming pools.

Japan has a higher suicide rate than the U.S., but almost no gun suicides because they don't have any.

Their favorite methods are jumping in front of moving trains and flinging themselves off of cliffs.

In the city where I worked, people came from miles around to kill themselves there because we had the tallest parking structures you could drive to the top of and jump off from.

The fact is that people use what's available when they decide to take their own lives.

The folks who believe banning multistory buildings and trains and leveling mountains is the answer can't be helped.

There was a study that suggested when japanese investigtors felt they could not solve a murder they would list the cause of death as suicide to save face

That's the Japanese term for covering your assets. It doesn't do much for lowering the crime rate.

You would think if "it" happened in Japan someone would have a picture of it.

[VMI77]

I read this as: "Gun ownership tied to Three-fold increase in suicide success rate".

Makes sense to me.

The scary statistic for me - and you guys can help me figure out how to rationalize is the one that says owning a firearm in the home puts you at substantially greater risk of firearm related injury. It was so significant that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends removing guns from the home if you have kids... (1992 and 2000 studies).

So then I think that if we excluded people who improperly stored firearms, we'd be OK... Apparently that isn't the case either - odds are almost twice as likely:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/1 ... ull#ref-30


Again, walk me through it so I can counter-argue... Because I'm not sure that I can, other than on the basis that I don't live my life to minimize risk every second of the day.

s

It's just another lie using deliberately distorted statistics. For example, what they don't mention is that those households contained violent felons and other lesser criminals in addition to guns. And btw, the AAP is openly anti-gun for political, not medical reasons.

[VMI77]

You can bet that at a minimum it is a deliberate conflation of correlation with causation. I'd also bet they included people who bought guns contemplating suicide.....along with other statistical tricks.

[cb1000rider]

It's just another lie using deliberately distorted statistics. For example, what they don't mention is that those households contained violent felons and other lesser criminals in addition to guns. And btw, the AAP is openly anti-gun for political, not medical reasons.

So you're saying that they intentionally included households with felons and on the other side of the statistic excluded those same households? I'd buy it from a left-wing journal, but from Oxford? Can you show me the lie... For me, it's not just enough to reference it, I need to see it.

[VMI77]

It's just another lie using deliberately distorted statistics. For example, what they don't mention is that those households contained violent felons and other lesser criminals in addition to guns. And btw, the AAP is openly anti-gun for political, not medical reasons.

So you're saying that they intentionally included households with felons and on the other side of the statistic excluded those same households? I'd buy it from a left-wing journal, but from Oxford? Can you show me the lie... For me, it's not just enough to reference it, I need to see it.

I didn't look at the Oxford study.....maybe I was addressing a question you didn't ask. I thought you were alluding to the phony number that the antis are constantly spouting to the effect that you're 15 times more likely to be shot in a household where a gun is present. That number comes from including households where one or more criminals is also present, and it counts the deaths of those said criminals as if they were just everyday law abiding citizens.

[cb1000rider]

No, I'm asking about the "fact" that if you own a firearm, you're much more likely to be injured by a firearm.. I guess that makes sense.
The anti argument that I've heard is that if you own a firearm, the person most likely to get shot with it is someone in your household, but I didn't find a reliable reference to that.

[LSUTiger]

Guns don't make people commit suicide. People who commit suicide are suicidal anyway and a gun is a convenient, quick and easy way to do it. That's the only way this could make any sense to me. Perhaps, they wouldn't do it if it was more painful.

Perhaps a person contemplating suicide could get help and realize the want to live and return to a normal life, and not having a gun readily available stopped them long enough to get help.

But I think those that want help will find help and those that are serious will find a way to do it regardless.

Now, it could be argued that there are benefits to society by making it easy for people to commit suicides. Who knows how much of an effective way of they are in stopping mass shootings or other violent crime before it happens by ridding society of mentally unstable people who could possibly harm others trying to get suicide by cop or just because they want revenge before the killing themselves.

Additionally, the statistics maybe skewed by the people committing crime and right before they get caught they kill themselves to avoid prison. It happens over and over, especially in these mass shooting cases. "Gunman died of self-inflicted gunshot"

What would you rather, having to deal with a homocidal maniac yourself or letting the problem take care of itself?

Society always wants to fix people. Some people can't be fixed.

I think some people know they are a danger to others and in some moment of clarity know they can't stop what ever compulsions they have and decide to end it because they don't want to hurt others.

Either way, I am not giving up my guns.

[VMI77]

No, I'm asking about the "fact" that if you own a firearm, you're much more likely to be injured by a firearm.. I guess that makes sense.
The anti argument that I've heard is that if you own a firearm, the person most likely to get shot with it is someone in your household, but I didn't find a reliable reference to that.

And that's what I was addressing. In the study they based that on a lot of the people shot either lived with or invited criminals into their home. For instance, a wife with an abusive husband; or some guy that hangs out with violence prone "friends," or just two thugs inhabiting the same place. So, they got shot because they lived with a thug, and would just have been clubbed or stabbed if no gun was available.

[cb1000rider]

Isn't that included if they're comparing to "general population" statistics also?

[WildBill]

You can bet that at a minimum it is a deliberate conflation of correlation with causation.

I think that you hit the nail on the head.

I haven't read the article or study and don't plan to waste my time.
I actually believe that gun owners have an increased suicide risk.
But the gun ownership is not a causal effect.
In other words, owning a gun doesn't make one more likely to commit suicide.

Consider the statistic [that I made up] - Gun Ownership tied to Conservative Politics
Does that mean that gun owners are more likely to be conservatives. Maybe
Does that mean that buying a gun causes a person to be more conservative? Probably not.

[K.Mooneyham]

No, I'm asking about the "fact" that if you own a firearm, you're much more likely to be injured by a firearm.. I guess that makes sense.
The anti argument that I've heard is that if you own a firearm, the person most likely to get shot with it is someone in your household, but I didn't find a reliable reference to that.

You're over-thinking it. There are an (estimated) 310 MILLION private firearms in the USA. Are MILLIONS of Americans being shot, or shooting themselves, each year with said firearms? The obvious answer is a resounding NO! Even if having firearms somehow increases your risk, the amount of increase is very small, unless there are some other larger factors involved like violent felons or some on-going mental problems.

[03Lightningrocks]

It is pretty darned obvious to me that a person who wants to commit suicide is going to choose the most convenient method available. If a gun is right there, it is likely to be a gun. If they have sleeping pills available, they will probably do the overdose thing. I could go on and on but the point is that we could take any method for suicide and claim that method is somehow responsible for the person killing themselves. It is like blaming cars for car crashes. Does anyone really buy into ridiculous studies like this?

[MasterOfNone]

You can bet that at a minimum it is a deliberate conflation of correlation with causation. I'd also bet they included people who bought guns contemplating suicide.....along with other statistical tricks.

I was wondering if they include people who purchase a gun for the sole purpose of suicide. It'd be like saying that people who buy screen repair kits are more likely to suffer damaged screens.

[jimlongley]

It is pretty darned obvious to me that a person who wants to commit suicide is going to choose the most convenient method available. If a gun is right there, it is likely to be a gun. If they have sleeping pills available, they will probably do the overdose thing. I could go on and on but the point is that we could take any method for suicide and claim that method is somehow responsible for the person killing themselves. It is like blaming cars for car crashes. Does anyone really buy into ridiculous studies like this?

Exactly, as VM177 said:

You can bet that at a minimum it is a deliberate conflation of correlation with causation. I'd also bet they included people who bought guns contemplating suicide.....along with other statistical tricks.

And the old "Help is available" saw isn't any better. They know that a lot of suicides that do succeed have done so in spite of "help", help that they considered not at all helpful, or that even made the hurt worse. When my late wife was dying, 21 years ago now, I'll admit that I contemplated taking to the bridge. Funny thing is, that with a house full of guns, I didn't consider shooting myself. My family rallied around me and told me I needed treatment (read with liberal amounts of irony) and I went to see a "counselor."

Said counselor, with all his diplomas on the walls, delved deeply into my abused childhood and such and decided that one of the reasons I was not enjoying the illness and death of my beloved wife of 23 years, was that I had no contact with my abusive parents, and when I refused to make contact with them, he took it upon himself to "cure" me by contacting them himself. I fired him and filed a formal complaint with the county and state, and got so mad that I decided to outlive the little (redacted) and desecrate his grave site.

My point, after all, is that suicide is not an illness, it is many things, many causes, and "saving" someone from suicide may not improve their quality of life or even prevent them from doing it again. MY late wife became suicidal when a long time lover decided he wasn't going to marry her because he was Catholic and she was divorced. Of course there were other factors, lots of them, but the point is that she saw no end to the misery and thus decided to sit down in the bathtub with candles and a bottle of scotch and cut her wrists. Her ex took that moment to decide to return their children a day early and they discovered her before she bled out. We met about a year later, and she was still teetering on the edge of the abyss, but decided to stick around for me. Lots more to the story, but suffice it to say that I contributed something to her life that she had not gotten from friends or family and definitely not from lovers.

Suicidal thoughts are intense and can even be rationalized, and suicides are capable of making plans for the day, including buying guns.

Which makes me wonder: If the suicides they are counting are all by gun, or do they count the gun owner who offs himself by taking pills while he is in the end stage of his horrible cancer, or the lonely divorcee who has her now ex-boyfriend's revolver in her apartment but slits her wrists? Would they have counted me, a gun owner, as one of their statistics if I had swan dived off that bridge? Or even, not trying to raise more controversy, the member of the Hemlock Society, also an NRA member, who calmly and with forethought takes the chemical cocktail instead of wallowing in the throes of Alzheimers for years.

[K.Mooneyham]

@jimlongley:

These "studies" already have a preconceived conclusion. Then the data is gathered and massaged to fit the conclusion. Its a propaganda tool to convince folks who either take things at face value when it comes from an "expert" with framed credentials hanging on the wall, or people who are just far too busy to do a little research or thinking about the subject on their own. But mostly its about creating an alternate "reality" by telling a specific lie long enough and loud enough that it becomes accepted "fact".

YOU put the time in to actually think about the subject and quickly shot holes all in that little theory of theirs.