pop quiz question E: Do you think US guncontrol laws affect gun suicide rates for the better?
johnston: E-There is no empirical evidence to support that. That is the only reason that it matters. There is a study that attempts to make that connection, but fails in include other factors like rural vs urban.
Actually there are several studies which demonstrate that stricter gun control laws, as well as lower gun ownership rates, lessen suicide rates. Note also stricter gun laws affect gun ownership rates, generally making guns less pervasive.
april 2013: A new study links the risk of suicide with gun ownership rates and people who voted for GW Bush.“States with the highest rates of gun ownership — for example, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Alabama, WVirginia — also tended to have the highest suicide rates. These states were also carried overwhelmingly by George Bush in 2000..”The professor also argued stricter gun control laws would reduce suicide rates ..“Although policies aimed at seriously regulating firearm ownership would reduce individual suicides, such policies are likely to fail not because they do not work, but because many Americans remain opposed to meaningful gun control..” sociology professor Augustine Kposowa , who has studied suicide and its causes for 2 decades.. analyzed data relating to 131,636 individual suicides, http://collegeinsurrection.com/2013/04/uc-riverside-prof-links-high-suicide-rates-with-republicans-gun-owners/
Another: mar2013 States with more gun laws have fewer gun-related deaths, according to a new study.. "Our research gives clear evidence that laws have a role in preventing firearms deaths," .. Fleegler and researchers from Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health studied information from all 50 states between 2007 to 2010, analyzing all firearm-related deaths.. States with the most laws had a mortality rate 42% lower than those states with the fewest laws.. The strong law states' firearm-related homicide rate was also 40% lower and their firearm-related suicide rate was 37% lower. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/07/gun-violence-study-chicago/1969227/
England and Wales {with strict guncontrol laws} have a gun homicide rate 21 times lower than that among white Americans, and 215 times lower than that among black Americans, and a gun suicide rate 47 times lower than that among white Americans. Other forms of murder and suicide do not make up the difference. The overall American homicide rate in 2008 was 54 per million inhabitants per year. The overall homicide rate in England and Wales in 2011 was 9.6 per million. The overall suicide rate in America in 2009 was 117 per million. The overall suicide rate in England and Wales in 2011 was 87 per million. http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2013/03/gun-control-0
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