> You can just as easily compare suicide rates as you can compare murder rates (which gun control advocates are inclined to do).
You can just as easily compare mass of the moon to temperature of the Sun or any two numbers really. By "can't" I meant that there's barely any reason to do it especially when pondering the influence of a single factor.
> However, I think we can safely conclude that the presence or absence of guns may not be the only factor in determining the suicide rate.
Yes. I hope nobody thinks it's the only factor determining suicide rates difference between the countries. Because I don't think there's a single observation that could indicate that it's the only factor.
> Not really much better than comparing across countries. There is more in common between these two groups, but it still isn't some randomized control trial.
Vastly better than comparing across countries. Especially if one of those countries is USA that is very different from other countries.
And it's randomized in a sense that there was no additional criterion other than gun ownership to separate two groups. The only other factors worth looking at would be the ones that correlate with gun ownership. Like being conservative for example. It might be that being conservative makes you more prone to suicide even if you don't own a gun. Further research is needed.
> Likewise, while taking away guns probably will have some influence on the suicide rate, I doubt very much (or not as much as people think).
If there's a 4 fold increase of the probability of suicide for people owning a gun then if you take the guns away, number of suicides in this group will drop by some significant amount (depending on how much of this increase comes from guns, and how much comes from factors that correlate with gun ownership). To keep the suicide rates roughly the same overall people who currently don't own a gun would have to start suicinding more because now there's nobody owning a gun and I can't imagine any possible mechanism that might cause it.
> We also cannot ignore the consequences of taking the guns: a psychological loss of agency, and potentially physical loss of security, etc. It's not a simple problem to solve.
I agree it's a thing that needs to be considered. However part of this sense of agency is agency to take their own lives in quick and simple fashion.
I think that in some cases stripping someone of sense of agency might be beneficial.
For the suicide to be attempted you don't only need to be depressed but also you need to feel enough agency to take your life.
Part of the problem with some of antidepressants is that they don't change your outlook on life but they give you energy. So the world still looks horrible but now you feel empowered to finally do something about it and you kill yourself.
But the argument about guns is not really about, let's ban guns to lower suicide rates. It's way more about, let's ban guns to prevent people who broke down from slaugtering dozen other people each.