My statement stands. And I am unsure what is not getting across here.
Let me make this clear (and I believe this is the third time I have said this... if we include my posts to schraf). What I was trying to get at is that licensing and registration will not alter suicides by weeding out those will use them as suicides. I DO believe that with harder licensing there will be less guns around and so less will choose to use them in suicides.
That may be a subtle distinction, but it is my position, and is borne out by the facts.
Your assertion that since we don't know how many more suicides would have happened (when it is apparent suicides went up anyway), we know your position must be correct, is an argument from ignorance.
What can clearly be seen in the data is that despite curbs on guns, and an additional decrease in the percentage CHOICE of gun as method, suicides continued to rise. Thus guns are not a causative factor.
This data relates to firearm homicides, not suicides.
Whoops. I misread it. Good catch. Though it is an incidental point to the overall argument.
A reduction in firearm suicides appears to have been the result. Is there any reason to suggest that a similar outcome would not occur in the US?
You seem to continue to miss my point. I am not suggesting there would not be a change in method away from guns, similar as seen in Australia. My point (which is also seen in Australia) is so what?
Why am I supposed to care how a person chooses to kill themselves? I just do not understand this dilemma.
Some interesting points from the CDC paper:
Ohhhhhhh man. You even managed to extract the same self-serving editorial comment that schraf did.
1) Comparisons of suicides between the US and Australia are meaningless to this discussion.
2) The decline in suicides in the US occurred DESPITE no real changes in gun laws as occured during the same period in Australia. This is a point in MY favor, not yours.
3) Yeah, there was a decrease in suicide by firearms during that period. That was MY POINT. That was the POINT OF THE ARTICLE. And that is WHY I MENTIONED IT.
The editorial note says that EFFECTIVE METHODS FOR SUICIDE (in this debate guns, but can also stand for other effective methods... even they reconized this) may not only help a less courageous person attempt suicide, but also make that attempt more likely to succeed. This is true as most people try to avoid pain and guns are thought to be pretty damn quick. Pills are another method thought to be less painful and so are high on the list, unfortunately (or fortunately) people that use pills can often be saved.
So what? If we eventually have a pill which is quick and painless and more deadly than a self-inflicted gunshot does that negate concerns over guns when it becomes the prime method of suicide. And like I asked before, once guns are no longer the prime suicide method do we go after rope?
There appears to be a viable connection between limiting access to firearms, to reducing firearm suicides to reducing total suicides in the US context.
This was not the message at all. It showed a shift toward suffocation as a method and a reduction in suicide in general, but did not have any concrete reasons. It stated that the motives behind suicide must be addressed.
You guys certainly are making a lot of hay out of that editorial note, when the emphasis of the article was not reducing guns reduces suicides.
As we saw clearly in the Australian study reducing guns did not affect suicide rates at all (unless you want me to use the same tactic as you just did and extrapolate a causative connection and say restricting guns increased suicide rates... maybe all those people that couldn't own guns?).
You are clinging to an odd argument by bringing suicide into this.
I wish you'd keep in mind that I am for some measure of gun licensing and registration. My whole point is that choice of gun as method of suicide does not make any case, or a hard case, for licensing and registration.
Back to paraphrasing archie bunker: "Would'ya be happier if they jumped out'a winders?" (note: that is the preferred method of suicide in japanese children and pretty damn effective. The cause of a major spike in such suicides was high expectations and pressures regarding schools... not the availability of windows.)
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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