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Comment by samsnelling | Hacker News Reader

Including suicides seems unfair.

> The U.S. Department of Justice reports that approximately 60% of all adult firearm deaths are by suicide, 61% more than deaths by homicide. [1]

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Stat...

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Just making suicide slightly more difficult dramatically reduces suicide rates. It's difficult to stop someone determined to kill themselves, but most suicides are impulse decisions, so removing the opportunity often prevents the suicide. That's why suicide barriers on bridges actually reduce suicide rates rather than changing the method.

I agree with you generally… but in this specific case, do regions with very strong and effective gun control have dramatically lower suicide rates than the US? My understanding is that suicide rates in Europe aren't dramatically lower, though they do appear to be a bit lower in western europe and higher in eastern… I can't tell if this might be handgun related, is the delta large enough?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...

I don't have any information on the suicide rates by gun in each country, though it would be useful information from a public health standpoint (especially if, as you pointed out, the accessibility could be reduced).

Just eyeballing, I see a handful of strongly liberal European countries above the US, and a bunch that are just below the US.

But this is a tough thing to compare, as you note. Suicide rate is encompassing a whole bunch of things. I'm tempted to compare against Canada, where the suicide rate is only less by 1 per 100,000 people per year, but I have no idea if I'm picking that out fairly.

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/9/07-043489.pdf suggests that the US is the only country where firearm is the preferred method of suicide. A bit morbid to read but there you go.

Japan is an excellent example, even the police don't often carry guns if I remember correctly.

But you're doing that at the cost of denying all non-suicides the right to own a gun. The government's mandate is not to eliminate all deaths at all costs. It is to balance a wide variety of conflicting issues. And many people who wish to own firearms do not believe that the very small chance that they may commit suicide justifies the government preventing them from owning a firearm.

> Including suicides seems unfair.

Why?

I can't read the article, but I would assume that they have not included the suicides happening at home using the car (by inhaling exhaust in a closed space), and have only counted the deaths on the road.

Emission controls on modern vehicles make it difficult to die from carbon monoxide poisoning these days.

gun owners place a high value on agency. I have wondered if one reason they tend to not see suicides as legitimate in gun death stats is because they tend to see suicide as a willful act that a person also has a right to. Just a speculation...

Improving access to mental healthcare in the US would do a lot to reduce gun deaths.

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