[danielweber]

Because no one is discussing "gun deaths" in a vacuum.

"Gun death" weren't selected at random to compare to "car deaths" by some antiseptic algorithm. It's done, pretty obviously, to drive a narrative, i.e., "guns should be more regulated."

When discussing that narrative, there is a big gap between "you shouldn't have a gun because you might hurt your neighbor" and "you shouldn't have a gun because your neighbor might use a gun to hurt himself."

[vor_]

Easy access to an effective suicide method is one more impact of the pervasiveness of guns in a modern society. It's an important factor in determining gun deaths.

In determining the deadliness of drugs to a society, should suicides be ruled out? Accidental overdoses? Drug-related shootings? Where do you draw the line in filtering the statistics so that they're more comfortable for a given political position?

[sosuke]

Access to guns is very restrictive in Japan, extremely restrictive in fact, yet they have a higher suicide rate than the United States. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

[collyw]

I'll bet they have less gun deaths though.