Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Clinton Speaks at Trayvon Martin Foundation, Calls Trump's Gun Policies 'Dangerous' [View all]Spacedog1973
(221 posts)We are discussing how gun use increases the suicide rate. Now you want to talk about a 'suicide capital of the world'. Did you think that what I meant was that the more guns = more suicides? So that the country with the most guns = the country with the most suicides and the country with the least guns would also be the country with the least suicides?
This black and white thinking is increasingly prevalent for some reason.
Let me spell it out - more guns = easier access to a tool that makes suicide successful. That should not be controversial. Why deny it? Its factual. This is statistics. Call it science if you want to.
Now, you are arguing that countries with higher guns or lower gun ownership, may have numbers that are dissimilar to my assertion. We are then venturing into different cultures with different values, - as one example; a person (from a different culture/Country) may commit suicide because he is unable to have children, or is homosexual, or is disabled. Either one of those issues make it almost impossible to function within the culture they are in. Having a firearm would also place that individual within a subset of their culture that is financially secure, that would mitigate disablement, or inability to have children or even homosexuality. There may also be things that are more easily accessible for a poor person to commit suicide than having a firearm, i.e jumping into a river, running into the forest with no provisions, overdosing on imported drugs..
My point is, when you try to move the argument to other countries, you then encounter variable that don't apply to the US, or some other western countries.
I did a brief check on the top rates of suicide and they are almost all, poor and developing countries or those that have experienced significant turmoil http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-suicides-in-the-world.html. Obviously, comparing the US with developing countries is pointless.
Within the states (the area in which the conversation was supposed to be based upon) a combination of factors come into play as is elsewhere; Poverty has a high correlation with suicide (and the causes of poverty such as war) in addition to the ownership of firearms;
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/spr08gunprevalence/
As in my previous comment, I used a link from Harvard. Although you may scoff at it, you won't have any information that would challenge its conclusions.
So there we are. Your opinion, vs my 'science'.