It boggles the mind.

I'd like to see the correlation between gun homicides and gangs vs gun homicides and gun laws.

Another study that would be interesting is efforts to incarcerate gang members and gun homicides.

Suicides shouldn't be part of the story.

In Colorado, suicides represent 76% of gun deaths.

What you ask is absurd.

No instead we key on mass random shootings which are rare and certainly even less of a occurrence than gang shootings.

because there is no real evidence that the suicide rate would go down. While there have been studies attempted to show that, they don't seem to be accepted by serious researchers. Out of the studies done comparing before and after stricter laws the studies showed that while gun suicides did drop, the suicide rate did not. Also, rural areas have higher suicide rates than urban areas. While saying it is "because there are more guns in rural areas" might be true if the problem was limited to US, Canada, parts of Europe, New Zealand, and even Australia. The problem is, the problem is just as true in Japan, South Korea, and other countries where legal gun ownership is almost nonexistent even in rural areas.

Mass shootings make the news because they are rare. The victims also tend to be whiter and more affluent, all the more reason for the media to care more.

But I digress.

I don't know what you could possibly mean by "serious researchers", but I doubt you could find a single suicide expert who doesn't agree that guns increase suicide risk. The fact that gun availability increases suicide rates has been established over and over again in peer reviewed literature. The Harvard School of Public Health has a lot of good info and studies about this.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/

As a side note, if this forum is really going to be a place for progressives to discuss gun control, then we're going to have to do something about the denialism and the lies like in this post.

certainly not among criminologists. He may or may not be in public health.
Maybe the word I should have used is independent, which would be more accurate.

The only people who don't take him seriously are the NRA, and that's not based on the quality of his research, just that they don't like his conclusions.

Also, I'm not talking about one paper by Hemenway. I'm talking about dozens of papers by a bunch of different authors. See below for a partial bibliography. Are you going to argue that none of those those authors are "taken seriously"?

Oh, and ignored my question. Can you quote a single expert on suicide who doesn't think that gun availability increases suicide risk? Well?

Brent DA, Perper JA, Moritz G, Baugher M, Schweers J, Roth C. Firearms and adolescent suicide. A community case-control study. Am J of Diseases of Children. 1993;147(10):1066-71.

Brent DA, Baugher M, Bridge J, et al. (1999). Age- and sex-related risk factors for adolescent suicide. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 38, 1497-1505.

Brent DA, Perper JA, Allman CJ, et al. (1991). The presence and accessibility of firearms in the homes of adolescent suicides: a case-control study. JAMA, 266, 2989-2995.

Brent DA, Perper J, Moritz G, et al. (1993). Suicide in adolescents with no apparent psychopathology. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 32, 494-500.

Brent, D. A., Perper, J. A., Goldstein, C. E., Kolko, D. J., Allan, M. J., Allman, C. J., & Zelenak, J. P. Risk factors for adolescent suicide. A comparison of adolescent suicide victims with suicidal inpatients. Archives of General Psychiatry. 1988; 45:581-8.

Brent, DA. (1995). Risk factors for adolescent suicide and suicidal behavior: Mental and substance abuse disorders, family environmental factors, and life stress. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 1995; 25:52-63.

Brent DA, Baugher M, Bridge J, Chen T, Chiappetta L. Age- and sex-related risk factors for adolescent suicide. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1999; 38(12):1497-505.

Conwell Y, Duberstein PR, Connor K, Eberly S, Cox C, Caine ED. Access to firearms and risk for suicide in middle-aged and older adults. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2002;10(4):407-16.

Dahlberg LL, Ikeda RM, Kresnow MJ. Guns in the home and risk of a violent death in the home: findings from a national study. Am J Epidemiol. 2004 Nov 15;160(10) 29-36.

Grassel KM, Wintemute GJ, Wright MA, Romero MP. Association between handgun purchase and mortality from firearm injury. Inj Prev. Inj Prev. 2003 Mar;9(1):48-52.

Grossman DC, Mueller BA, Riedy C, et al. (2005). Gun storage practices and risk of youth suicide and unintentional firearm injuries. JAMA, 293, 707-714.

Kellermann AL, Rivara FP, Somes G, Reay DT, Francisco J, Banton JG, Prodzinski J, Fligner C, Hackman BB. Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership. N Engl J Med. 1992 Aug 13;327(7):467-72.

Kung HC, Pearson JL, Liu X. Risk factors for male and female suicide decedents ages 15-64 in the US. Results from the 1993 National Mortality Followback Survey. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2003;38(8):419-26.

Kung HC, Pearson JL, Wei R. Substance use, firearm availability, depressive symptoms, and mental health service utilization among white and African American suicide decedents aged 15 to 64 years. Ann Epidemiol. 2005 Sep;15(8):614-21.

Wiebe DJ. Homicide and suicide risks associated with firearms in the home: a national case-control study. Ann Emerg Med. 2003 Jun;41(6) 71-82. 1992 Aug 13;327(7):467-72.

Shah S, Hoffman RE, Wake L, Marine WM. Adolescent suicide and household access to firearms in Colorado: results of a case-control study. J Adolesc Health. 2000 Mar;26(3):157-63. Note: there has been one study (non-US) that has found no association between firearm prevalence and suicide rates: Beautrais AL, Joyce PR, Mulder RT. Access to firearms and the risk of suicide: a case control study. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 1996 Dec;30(6) 41-8.

I didn't say any independent researchers didn't think there was a link. I said independent researchers AFAIK have not found cause and effect. I did not even say independent researchers attempted to try to find such a link. The OP did not say there was cause and effect. It simply said gun laws are associated with gun death, which are mostly suicides. Those are two different things.
A better map would be one based on ownership rate, which is harder to determine, would be better than by who has stricter laws. For example, in terms of gun ownership Florida, California, Delaware and Maryland are about the same.

Using the "fewer suicides" argument has two big risks. Saying "stricter laws will reduce gun suicides" will beg the question "what about those of other means, don't they matter?" The other risk is that once laws are in place, and the gun suicides do indeed drop, but the suicide rate does not. You would have much less credibility when wanting to close "remaining loopholes". From there, one would have to ask "what about those other common suicide means?" If nothing, why not if suicide prevention is the goal?

The person I replied to someone who asked why suicides and daily gang violence, which is more common, is used as less of a rational than the relatively rare spree shooting. That is a good question. I think I gave a fairly good answer within your SOP, according to six DUers. It was also my honest opinion.
BTW, those are written by the same people

I mean, here you are insisting that no "independent researchers" believe any of the many peer-reviewed studies on the topic, and that the Harvard School of Public Health is not "taken seriously", and yet you can't find a single instance of a suicide expert agreeing with you.

I didn't say anything about believe. I look at before/after results in different jurisdictions. IIRC, that is confirming, or not, by experiment. I didn't even say there wasn't a correlation or association. I only said I seriously doubt that there is a cause and effect.
See the difference? But then, it could just that people in those states drink more soda as teen agers.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/10/28/study-soda-violence/

And yet you can't name a single one of the "serious researchers" who doesn't accept the studies on guns and suicide from HSPH and other places.

I'm not particularly interested whether you personally believe that guns affect suicide rates. You can also believe the world is flat if you choose to. But if you are going to claim that the "serious researchers" don't accept something, you should probably be able to name some researchers that you consider serious and that support your point of view.

that is to say outside of the same few people using the same questionable methods. I haven't taken the time to read that list, which is mostly Hemenway, I'm going to take a wild guess that they cite other Hemenway studies, and other studies cite each other.
Other than defending Hemenway's reputation, do you have anything to say about any other point I made? My opinion of Hemenway had nothing to do with anything else I said.

A researcher doesn't have to agree with me to not accept Hemenway's studies. They only have to be agnostic and not take Hemenway seriously let alone view it as a definitive work.

I count 32 papers in that list, of which Hemenway is primary author on exactly one, and he is a secondary author on six others. So when you say that list is "mostly" Hemenway, that is lie number, umm, I've lost track, I think you're in the triple digits by now.

I'm not sure why you're hung up on Hemenway, he's not really even the leading researcher in the area of guns and suicide. My guess is that he's the one the NRA teaches people to hate, so you guys end up believing that all the studies are by this one Harvard professor with an anti-gun vendetta. This is how myths circulate.

he is also the most cited in the media.
Actually I have read the literature. Most of it qualifies their studies as "gun suicide rate" instead of "suicide rate"

Are you even trying?

since you haven't said anything of substance yet.
I didn't say anything about first author, so how is that relevant?

Also, I thought this forum was supposed to be free of stupid NRA talking points. Because I count 3 NRA talking points in this post:
1) "DC and Chicago prove gun control doesn't work" (those are just two datapoints)
2) "the real problem is gangs, not guns" (only a small fraction of homicides are gun-related)
3) "suicides don't count" (there is a lot of evidence that reducing gun availability lowers suicide rates)

for example.

and Michigan's too.

both states have weaker laws than Illinois and both states have higher gun deaths.

by your logic, the entire state of Illinois should have higher gun deaths because the laws don't work, but only Chicago, which borders the loose gun law state of Indiana, is a higher rate.

They put total suicides at 12.4/100,000 which calculates to 39,000 suicides. Suicides by gun are successful 85% of the time, while pills only have a 2% success rate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/us/to-lower-suicide-rates-new-focus-turns-to-guns.html?pagewanted=all
While correlation does not prove cause and effect, it is a necessary part of proof. A second part of proof would be a rational mechanism by which the effect follows the cause. If the cause (gun restrictions) put in place with the intention of achieving an effect, then a correlation is very close to proof.

Last edited Tue Apr 30, 2013, 02:52 AM - Edit history (1)