(03-31-2014 03:13 PM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 02:47 PM)john01992 Wrote:  2. the second was a pair of bridges in seattle. one bridge had all the suicide jumpers so they put up a suicide barrier. the theory was the suicide rate would remain the same because the jumpers would switch to a nearby bridge that wasn't used as much because it was harder to jump off of. but that didn't happen, instead the suicide rate for the area dropped.

You haven't demonstrated that people didn't switch to another method of suicide. You stated the other bridge was already harder from which to jump. So, it isn't surprising that the rate at that bridge didn't go up. The assumption that it would go up is fundamentally flawed.

lemme guess......

33% of people decided to leave the UK to commit suicide because they suddenly decided to start doing it outside the country......

50% of people who decided to commit suicide in DC suddenly decided to leave the area to do it.....

the golden gate bridge study that verified the cause of death for 537 people was.......(i can't even think of even a sarcastic way to discredit that one)

or how cornell university located in a town that is full of gorges (and thus high bridges) also happened to be a school with one of the highest suicide rates in the country? but once they put up suicide barriers and 24/7 security guards the suicide rate went down. you saying the fix was that students withdrew, moved away and then committed suicide........

and the very valid & very logical argument that owl said ==> which every psychologist and the 3 examples noted above agrees with

yeah....you disregard all that because you are too closed minded to ever think clearly.

(03-31-2014 03:56 PM)Crebman Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 03:51 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 03:12 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 02:48 PM)john01992 Wrote:  the 2 bridges were right next to each other in seattle

Ok. I thought it was UK as well. Someone else brought up Golden Gate.

the golden gate was studied as further proof to back up the thrends from the seattle bridges that closing them lower the total suicide rate.

they documented every single failed golden gate suicide jumpings and found that only 6% "completed"

John, as was stated earlier - roughly .01% to .02% of people successfully commit suicide by whatever means. To argue for massive gun control of everyone in the country is so absurd it's laughable. The suicide rates are really statistically insignificant when comparing the UK, Canada, and the US.

You would actually be better off arguing for massive gun control because "You don't like guns". At least then, you're honest. Arguing that gun control will reduce suicide rates doesn't add up. Period.

and you guys have a total and complete lack of understanding for how suicide works. those who opt to jump off a bridge or shoot themselves are the ones who are not trying cry out for help but legitimately want to die. Just finished a class where this topic came up and it drives me nuts that a bunch of gun nuts are trying to discredit what is generally accepted as factual by psychologist because they are gun nuts.

and go reread the whole thread. i stated multiple times that i am not advocating gun control with this argument.

sorry but that's where i tell you to F*** off.

(03-29-2014 06:19 PM)john01992 Wrote:  and go reread the whole thread. i stated multiple times that i am not advocating gun control with this argument.

He's right.. He did state it on page 3 I think.

(03-31-2014 03:47 PM)john01992 Wrote:  these guys are spitting in the face of so much academic research that they sound like creationists.

Spitting in the face? Good lord. You're merely trying to stifle academic discussion. You have the answer you want and aren;t interested in looking at the information critically.

Quote:almost any psy professor will say that suicide is impulsive. jumping off a bridge or shooting yourself in the head is not a cry for help.....that is absolute and final with no moment of hesitation. so if they can't perform a suicide that way then they might slit their wrists or pop pills instead. that is something that does give them a chance to hesitate, reconsider, and dial 911 and maybe save their lives. it baffles my mind that some people because of politics refuse to see this.

This is anecdotal evidence that doesn't fit with the comparisons to other countries. PLENTY of people think about suicide for a long time before doing it. If they didn't, what would the point of suicide hotlines be?

Quote:what really annoys the heck out of me is when people blankly use stats. what i mean is you guys fail to apply critical thinking to the stats and instead draw conclusions based on what you want the stats to show. you see that the US has a lower suicide rate than canada ==> you automatically assume that means guns are not responsible for suicides. you totally neglect environment, demographics, social services, economics, drug use, crime etc.

Not true at all. You use an INCREDIBLY small sample size and hope to prove something. I'm quite certain that suicides off that bridge declined when the barrier went in place. How many suicides took place in the state of Washington each year from 2005 to 2013? If you don't like that, then pick King County. I'd like to see the actual data so that we can actually have a good discussion rather than having you throw up a comment from a blog and then accuse people of being closed minded if they don't simply fall in step with your opinion.

Quote:no two regions are exactly the same hence the reason using total stats like that provides nothing to the argument.

yet despite this claim, you use what may or may not be factually accurate for one bridge in Seattle and try and apply that to everyone in the whole country. You use bridge suicides to make a point about gun suicides.

Quote:greenland has the highest suicide rate in the world, alaska has the highest among any US state and if they were their own country they would rank 4th worldwide. why do you think this is? do you think it could have anything to do with being such rural, isolated, cold, dark places? seems obvious to me that that environment is the biggest cause of depression and thus suicides for those area's.

look at canada. right smack in the middle of the two. they have areas that are just like greenland & alaska.

could it have occurred to you that because of the differences between canada & the US their suicide rates SHOULD be different? did it ever occur to you that maybe the reason canada managed to be on par with the US in the first place is because of their gun ownership rates being lower than the US?

Fine, How about the UK? How about France? Did you bother to test your theory by breaking down Canada into more and less populous provinces? There DOES appear to be some correlation between remoteness and suicide, but not guns and suicide.

Quote:no of course not. you jumped to the conclusion rather than dig a lil deeper.

Yet when people ask YOU to dig a little deeper in the face of such obvious contradictions, you act indignant.

Quote:according to gallup the national average for gun ownership is 34% which means of the 20 states with the highest suicide rates.....JUST ONE was below the national gun ownership average.

that is one of the most damning correlations that i have ever seen. and it doesn't get any more clear as day as that........

Correlation =/ causation. Maybe people in remote areas like to hunt... so they have guns... but they get lonely and suicidal. Correlation, not causation.

And if you're using the same data as the Washington Post, Only 12 states came in below the National Average... they just happen to be very populous states... so the numbers you present are statistically misleading.

Seriously, your arguments are pretty flawed... most especially the ones where you accuse others of not being open to different ideas when being so completely closed off yourself. They may or may not be accurate, but one can't know because you can't seem to fathom any other conclusion but yours.

Seriously, I'd love to have this discussion, but you need to present facts and compelling arguments and not opinions and diatribe.

(03-31-2014 04:05 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 03:13 PM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  You haven't demonstrated that people didn't switch to another method of suicide. You stated the other bridge was already harder from which to jump. So, it isn't surprising that the rate at that bridge didn't go up. The assumption that it would go up is fundamentally flawed.

lemme guess......

33% of people decided to leave the UK to commit suicide because they suddenly decided to start doing it outside the country......

50% of people who decided to commit suicide in DC suddenly decided to leave the area to do it.....

the golden gate bridge study that verified the cause of death for 537 people was.......(i can't even think of even a sarcastic way to discredit that one)

You keep saying 'location' when people keep saying 'method'.

Just because you stopped them from jumping off that bridge doesn't mean you reduced the total number of suicides. In fact, I've looked virtually everywhere and the suicide rate in Kings County and Washington State isn't reported (yet) past 2011 that I can see and has been pretty steady since at least 2000.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Document...UI2013.pdf

If you'd like to present actual facts and evidence, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

(03-31-2014 04:55 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 04:05 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 03:13 PM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  You haven't demonstrated that people didn't switch to another method of suicide. You stated the other bridge was already harder from which to jump. So, it isn't surprising that the rate at that bridge didn't go up. The assumption that it would go up is fundamentally flawed.

lemme guess......

33% of people decided to leave the UK to commit suicide because they suddenly decided to start doing it outside the country......

50% of people who decided to commit suicide in DC suddenly decided to leave the area to do it.....

the golden gate bridge study that verified the cause of death for 537 people was.......(i can't even think of even a sarcastic way to discredit that one)

You keep saying 'location' when people keep saying 'method'.

Just because you stopped them from jumping off that bridge doesn't mean you reduced the total number of suicides. In fact, I've looked virtually everywhere and the suicide rate in Kings County and Washington State isn't reported (yet) past 2011 that I can see and has been pretty steady since at least 2000.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Document...UI2013.pdf

If you'd like to present actual facts and evidence, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

washington DC not washington state dude. and the bridge story is from 1985.

edit: there is a bridge in seattle called "the washington bridge" that is also notorious for being a suicide bridge. the two suicide bridges cited in the example are located in DC. i think that's whats causing the confusion.

(03-31-2014 04:55 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 04:05 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 03:13 PM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  You haven't demonstrated that people didn't switch to another method of suicide. You stated the other bridge was already harder from which to jump. So, it isn't surprising that the rate at that bridge didn't go up. The assumption that it would go up is fundamentally flawed.

lemme guess......

33% of people decided to leave the UK to commit suicide because they suddenly decided to start doing it outside the country......

50% of people who decided to commit suicide in DC suddenly decided to leave the area to do it.....

the golden gate bridge study that verified the cause of death for 537 people was.......(i can't even think of even a sarcastic way to discredit that one)

If you'd like to present actual facts and evidence, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

you lie through your teeth with that comment. everything that i have seen from you and others is a complete and total disregard of evidence, and a refusal to have an open mind when presented with evidence.

(03-31-2014 05:07 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

Quote:If you'd like to present actual facts and evidence, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

you lie through your teeth with that comment. everything that i have seen from you and others is a complete and total disregard of evidence, and a refusal to have an open mind when presented with evidence.

Proof that you try and browbeat people who disagree with you.

You haven't presented any evidence.

Don't tell me to read an article (an opinion piece) give me the raw data. The fact that you won't only emboldens my concerns about your willingness to be objective.

The GWB in Seattle is the 2nd most commonly used suicide bridge in the country, and they did as you suggested and put in a jump fence in 2011. Mea culpa. I assumed you would choose a statistically significant bridge. I'd also assume that if it worked so well in DC, it should work as well in State, no? If not, WHY not.

Washington DC has about 40 suicides in a year... By FAR the lowest incidence rate in the country and about half the national average.... and in small populations, suicide rates can change dramatically from year to year.

I don't think anyone has argued that if you make it more difficult to use ANY particular method of suicide that the incidence of use of that method will go down. The argument is that people will still find ways to commit suicide. The biggest proof is that the suicide rate is relatively unchanged despite massive and consistent efforts to reduce it. I'm not saying these efforts are ineffective... I am merely saying that people are still committing suicide. Similarly, there are plenty of people committing suicide without guns or without the GWB.

Nothing you have argued SHOWS that this isn't the case. Arguments and opinions and suppositions are not proof. DATA is proof.

The suicide rate in Canada, the UK, France and the US are all similar... yet the gun laws are quite different. This certainly suggests that gun laws don't impact suicide rates.

I agree that 'remoteness' influences suicide rates which is why the Mountain West and Alaska are very high, but if it were simply the availability of guns, Texas would be far higher.... it's I believe the 10th or 11th lowest despite being highly populous and well above average gun ownership.

You can't just throw out a fact and then show one example and claim that the data is now no longer debatable. You have to ask why, and then show why 'exceptions' don't fit the mold.

Internationally, France and the UK (and others) are exceptions to your theory. Within the US, Texas defies your rule. You can't just say "everywhere is different' and thus the exceptions to your rule don't matter... you have to isolate those differences.

(03-31-2014 06:00 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 05:07 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

Quote:If you'd like to present actual facts and evidence, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

you lie through your teeth with that comment. everything that i have seen from you and others is a complete and total disregard of evidence, and a refusal to have an open mind when presented with evidence.

Proof that you try and browbeat people who disagree with you.

You haven't presented any evidence.
with the exceptions of the 6-7 examples that prove my point, the majority of psychology professors who agree with me, oh and the logical thought process that owl & I have laid out for you

Don't tell me to read an article (an opinion piece) give me the raw data. The fact that you won't only emboldens my concerns about your willingness to be objective.
and this is where i get so annoyed with you. the link i posted was an opinion piece but the only reason i chose it was because it gave two small summaries of the DC bridges & UK gas ovens examples. those two examples are widely used by psychology textbooks, they are not random examples but something that is brought up time & time again. i could care less for the opinion part of the article, i just wanted people to understand those two examples.

Had you read that link with an open mind you would of noticed that there was a link to a major NYT article that talked extensively about those two topics in full detailed and would of answer ALL of your questions rather than d***ing me around with your BS. nothing annoys the cr*p out of me more when multiple posters have said "you example is wrong because of ........" when the NYT article from that link answered several of those questions.

The GWB in Seattle is the 2nd most commonly used suicide bridge in the country, and they did as you suggested and put in a jump fence in 2011. Mea culpa. I assumed you would choose a statistically significant bridge. I'd also assume that if it worked so well in DC, it should work as well in State, no? If not, WHY not.
in a 2013 report by the state of washington they only had stats from 2010.

the DC bridge example i gave looked at suicide rates over the next 5 years before drawing a conclusion. would you really say an example that only had 2012 to use as an example to determine the trends would count as "statistically significant"?


Washington DC has about 40 suicides in a year... By FAR the lowest incidence rate in the country and about half the national average.... and in small populations, suicide rates can change dramatically from year to year.
we are a long ways away from 1985

I don't think anyone has argued that if you make it more difficult to use ANY particular method of suicide that the incidence of use of that method will go down. The argument is that people will still find ways to commit suicide. The biggest proof is that the suicide rate is relatively unchanged despite massive and consistent efforts to reduce it. I'm not saying these efforts are ineffective... I am merely saying that people are still committing suicide. Similarly, there are plenty of people committing suicide without guns or without the GWB.

while ignoring the golden gate bridge study that found only 6% completed. yeah it sucks when actual facts disagree with your argument.

Nothing you have argued SHOWS that this isn't the case. Arguments and opinions and suppositions are not proof. DATA is proof.

The suicide rate in Canada, the UK, France and the US are all similar... yet the gun laws are quite different. This certainly suggests that gun laws don't impact suicide rates.

I agree that 'remoteness' influences suicide rates which is why the Mountain West and Alaska are very high, but if it were simply the availability of guns, Texas would be far higher.... it's I believe the 10th or 11th lowest despite being highly populous and well above average gun ownership.

this is also what annoys the heck out of me. you are jumping to a conclusion and GUESSING that texas has a high % of gun ownership.



they might be average, or a little bit above average, but by no means are they one of the top gun ownership states % wise. in the second picture i count 28 states that have a darker shading than texas the first picture has 26 states that are darker than texas

You can't just throw out a fact and then show one example and claim that the data is now no longer debatable. You have to ask why, and then show why 'exceptions' don't fit the mold.
yeah you are right......i can't throw out 6-7 facts/examples backed up by extensive articles and textbooks.....and call it that's not fair........

Internationally, France and the UK (and others) are exceptions to your theory. Within the US, Texas defies your rule. You can't just say "everywhere is different' and thus the exceptions to your rule don't matter... you have to isolate those differences.

Let me try and say it differently to you

You believe something that I don't. That's fine. Peoe believe different things all the time. YOU are claiming that you can prove that your opinion is a fact and you can't.

In order to prove your beliefs to be facts, you must be able to explain or discount seemingly contradictory evidence... Ie why our suicide rate is almost exactly the same as some similar countries. You have absolutely declined to do this.

If there is enough evidence for you to believe what you believe, fine. There doesn't appear to be enough evidence to convince anyone who doesn't already believe what you do.... And you can't explain the obvious exceptions to your beliefs.


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(03-31-2014 06:58 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Let me try and say it differently to you

You believe something that I don't. That's fine. Peoe believe different things all the time. YOU are claiming that you can prove that your opinion is a fact and you can't.
except I already did numerous times on this thread

In order to prove your beliefs to be facts, you must be able to explain or discount seemingly contradictory evidence... Ie why our suicide rate is almost exactly the same as some similar countries. You have absolutely declined to do this.
i declined to do this because looking at total suicide rates and comparing them by country is a total joke. i already explained why and you are too closed minded to listen.

my arguments come from the side of academia's, what the NYT etc. is reporting, & documented examples.

your argument is what i consider redneck logic. it annoys the heck out of me when people take blank stats and jump to conclusions without putting any critical thinking into it.

If there is enough evidence for you to believe what you believe, fine. There doesn't appear to be enough evidence to convince anyone who doesn't already believe what you do.... And you can't explain the obvious exceptions to your beliefs.

anyone who can look at the information with an open mind can believe it. hence the reason colleges are teaching it exactly like how i am arguing it to you right now.

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I give up john. You're beyond help and a liar

I have no time for morons


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john never comes to any topic with an open mind or willingness to discuss. He just regurgitates what some professor says and accuses those who disagree of not having an open mind or willingness to discuss. He is just another punk kid with all the truths of the world and thinks everyone else no matter their experiences would be wise to bow before him.

A liberal.

Not unlike every other pos liberal.

(03-31-2014 07:19 PM)Paul M Wrote:  john never comes to any topic with an open mind or willingness to discuss. He just regurgitates what some professor says and accuses those who disagree of not having an open mind or willingness to discuss. He is just another punk kid with all the truths of the world and thinks everyone else no matter their experiences would be wise to bow before him.

A liberal.

Not unlike every other pos liberal.

yeah cuz the new york times & my professors are wrong, but what a bunch of message board posters are correct......

See.

(03-31-2014 03:10 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 01:58 PM)I45owl Wrote:  One thing that I see in the pie charts is that if you simply removed the bulk of the gun suicides from the US chart, the pie charts of the US and Canada would be remarkably similar.

45, this is tautological. You're vicariously arguing that if we didn't have guns, we would reduce the incidence of suicide by 53%... and that evidence just doesn't exist. You're basically arguing that if you normalize our gun rates, the results are about the same. Well of course they are.... but the INCIDENCE rate is cut in half. The much more logical inference is that those in Canada who can't access guns use another means... and that they likely have about the same distribution as those in the US who don't use guns.

In a sense, yes. I believe your prior interpretation of the chart is that if you take away guns, you'd see a shift towards hanging/poisoning/etc. The opposing proposition is that if you take away guns, those suicides do not happen, or are not successful. Those are not the only two possibilities, but my analysis shows that the latter fits the data better than the former. In actuality, I think you'd see a combination of the two (see below).

(03-31-2014 03:10 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  You're not really arguing that if we didn't have guns, we'd have half the incidence rate of the UK and Canada and Australia and everyone else?

Well, when you put it like that, it's hard to positively assert that yes, it would be half. I do think the reduction would be substantial, and I think the numbers suggest that if the means used in the US followed the same pattern as elsewhere, then the suicide rate in the US would be significantly lower than the other countries mentioned. Quantifying that is a nearly impossible task because it is so speculative.

I've looked at various stats that show hanging/suffocation/drowning attempts as having 80-90% success rates.

Going back to the US/Canada chart-pair, if you count hanging/suffocation and gun as equal, then the US suicides by effective means runs to about 74% compared to 60% in Canada, suggesting that if some portion of those who had attempted suicide by gun merely switched to other nearly equally effective means, you would not see the 40% drop, and it the end result may be that the US suicide rate would fall in closer to 60-70% of those other countries. I think that is entirely reasonable. I'm not so confident it would wind up at 50% of those other countries.

One stat I'd like to see for the US are whether those that committed suicide by gun bought the gun when they were contemplating suicide and whether the overall suicide rate of longstanding gun owners is higher than non-gun owners. I think that latter stat will tell you more than comparisons between countries. And, John's posting of state-by-state comparisons suggests that it does support the idea that the presence of guns increases overall suicide rate. It may be imperfect, but it does act as a proxy for intra-community gun-owner versus non-gun-owner.

(03-31-2014 03:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  All of the stuff about the success of this method versus that method ignores one big consideration.

Those analyses assume rational thought on the part of the perpetrator/victim, let's see, I'll do it this way rather than that way because this way has a higher success rate.

To the contrary, the argument that the suicide rate would remain the same in the absence of guns relies precisely on the argument that they are behaving rationally, and planning out the act.

The argument that the suicide rate would go down relies more on the argument that it is an impulsive act that occurs only because they have easy availability to the gun. The same attempt may occur in the absence of a gun using whatever is readily available, but the act would be far more likely to fail, and thus would not show up in the stats of means used in successful suicides.

(03-31-2014 03:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  People who commit suicide are by definition behaving irrationally.

To undermine my point above, I'll dispute this. Among the pages I've visited (not sure if I can bring up a citation), Australia estimated that similar numbers of people committed suicide as had (1) considered suicide on a daily basis, or (2) planned suicide on a daily basis. Such behavior may be driven by illness, but planning and thought do indicate it is a "rational act" in a lot of cases. I think you also have to divide between impulsive acts and planned acts.

Another of Australia's stats that they threw out was that there is something like a 30:1 ratio of attempts to success, which you may have to further attempt to parse out in "cry for help" versus genuine attempts, again suggesting (though not conclusively) that the availability of effective means may increase the overall rate.

(03-31-2014 03:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  At the end of the day, roughly the same number succeed regardless of gun laws.

Yet, with the same or similar gun laws the rate from one state to another within the United States seems to be as much as 400% higher in some states than others. Yes, the size of those states may be vastly different, but the states are all large enough to be statistically significant samples, each greater than 500,000.

Now then, despite agreeing to set aside the arguments I just spent the last 4-5 posts making, my real hope is that *at least* I can get some traction from people to consider that it is worthwhile to try to mitigate the risk of gun owners attempting suicide when they are depressed or facing a crisis not of their own making. I think this may also help mitigate situations like Adam Lanza that commit suicide in spectacular fashion, but (even though they are acts of insanity) acts like that are generally planned out and not impulsive.

Let me ask this:

What are the most effective actions to try to (1) reduce suicide rate in the US, and (2) prevent suicide from becoming a wedge used for gun control advocates?

Would your approach focus entirely on mental health and social services while merely arguing against gun control? Would some of the suggestions I made earlier be part of your plan? ( I refer to using family, friends, gun associations to make extra efforts in counseling and or storing guns out of the home for safekeeping)

(04-01-2014 10:11 AM)I45owl Wrote:  Now then, despite agreeing to set aside the arguments I just spent the last 4-5 posts making, my real hope is that *at least* I can get some traction from people to consider that it is worthwhile to try to mitigate the risk of gun owners attempting suicide when they are depressed or facing a crisis not of their own making. I think this may also help mitigate situations like Adam Lanza that commit suicide in spectacular fashion, but (even though they are acts of insanity) acts like that are generally planned out and not impulsive.

Let me ask this:

What are the most effective actions to try to (1) reduce suicide rate in the US, and (2) prevent suicide from becoming a wedge used for gun control advocates?

Would your approach focus entirely on mental health and social services while merely arguing against gun control? Would some of the suggestions I made earlier be part of your plan? ( I refer to using family, friends, gun associations to make extra efforts in counseling and or storing guns out of the home for safekeeping)

Here's the problem, I-45. Adam Lanza was not a gun owner if I remember correctly.... and his mother had a gun safe.

Using statewide statistics to imply that the individuals who used the guns had a right to do so is not in evidence... so laws meant to keep guns out of their hands are not de-facto effective and claims based on aggregate numbers are at the very least, over-stated. If you're saying that our rate would be closer to 10 per 100,000 then I would agree that that is certainly possible... but still that puts us in some pretty common company with Germany and Australia but still far above Italy, Spain and Mexico. yeah, I have a hard time believing Mexico's number myself... but that is what is reported.

I think it only prudent that friends and family take measures to keep guns away from their potentially suicidal friends and family members. I think it entirely reasonable to ASK someone with a registered weapon to surrender it temporarily in certain cases... even for the state to do so to buffer the family from an already tense situation. You certainly can get a court order to seize someone's weapons (say your spouse or ex) if you fear for your life.... but this needs to be done in a quiet, but completely above board manner. I think it entirely proper to convict people who don't take reasonable measures to secure their firearms.

Laws against individuals that try and prevent something before there is evidence that the individual poses a risk should have to demonstrate the risk of the individual and not merely assume that people who own guns are 'more dangerous' than people who don't. CRIMINALS who own guns are absolutely more dangerous... virtually by definition. Even under the most assumptive of situations, People who legally own guns are only minutely more dangerous than those who don't.... we're talking at most, 1-3 people per 100,000... and we can't even begin to calculate the number of offsetting dangerous and potentially lethal crimes that AREN'T committed because criminals suspect their victims are armed. I wouldn't argue that it is bigger than the 1-3 above, but it is certainly greater than zero. As I've mentoned and you seem to agree somewhat... we have to be careful about the cost vs benefit.

Suicide is often but isn't always about depression. I DO wonder how many of these suicides in the US are related to people with chronic long-term diseases. I wonder how those numbers change when you take those out. Some of the countries below us have notoriously poor healthcare and senior services. Many of those around and above us take great care of their seniors. This only relates to suicides overall and not gun suicides... but it certainly impacts the end result.

There DOES seem to be a high correlation to 'remote areas' and suicide. I think things like internet and video chats, even with professionals can help lead to better outcomes... but there is really no way to FORCE a depressed person to answer the facetime request.