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by rayiner 875 days ago
Guns and cars don’t change people’s mental state. Some of the states with the lowest homicide rates are states like Idaho, where half of households own a gun. This is also true over time. In the 1950s in the US, the percentage of households with a gun was much higher, but homicide rates were lower. Gun ownership rates in Europe were also a lot higher in the mid 20th century, while homicide rates were not.
1 comments
getlawgdon 875 days ago
Rate of gun ownership in Montana is among highest.

Rate of suicide in Montana is among highest.

Guess the method of suicide.

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rayiner 875 days ago
Does owning a gun cause suicidal thoughts? Most of Western Europe has higher suicide rates than the US: https://www.phillyvoice.com/why-suicide-rise-us-falling-most.... Eastern Europe has even higher suicide rates. And suicide rates in the US are going up as the percentage of households with a gun is going down.
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skissane 875 days ago
It can make a difference. Someone with suicidal thoughts who has a gun, the gun can give them a quick and easy method of acting on it, with high certainty of success. Without a gun, they’d have to resort to other methods, which involve more work, have lower likelihood of success, and greater risk (and hence anxiety) of the “you don’t actually die you just end up severely disabled” outcome

For someone dead set on killing themselves, it doesn’t make a big difference. For someone who has a sudden impulsive thought of suicide, having a gun can mean they die, without one by the time they’ve worked out how to kill themselves the impulse has passed

There isn’t a simple correlation between gun ownership rates and suicide because suicide rates are determined by many factors of which gun availability is just one. But I think it is a real factor, and there is research which supports that it is, e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36652694/

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JamesBarney 875 days ago
No but it increases the risk of a suicide attempt and it's lethality. The link between homicide and guns is small and nebulous, the link between guns and suicide is clear and much stronger.
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