You are far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver in the US than by a gun. Your chances of being killed by a gun are basically zero (unless you are travelling to the US specifically to commit suicide), so that's a somewhat bogus concern
I don't understand why people always discount suicides among gun deaths, as if suicides only happen to "other people".
It's true that you can limit your gun risk by being white/urban/middle-class/mentally healthy, but these are not advantages available to everyone. There's a lot of victim-blaming in some of these comments, which glosses over the fact that plenty of infants and toddlers die from guns.
Gun deaths in total numbers are roughly the same as car deaths: each are approx 30-40K per year in the USA.
When someone says they don't want to travel to the USA because they are afraid of being killed by a gun, it is disingenuous to inflate their chances of dying by including suicide as an option.
If I say "What are my chances of dying by gun or car if I go on a vacation to the USA?" are you really going to factor in suicide as an option? Generally it is presumed that the person is not considering going to the USA to commit suicide on their vacation.
Thus, most people discount suicides to tailor the gun figure such that a more apples-to-apples comparison can be made.
It's like people claiming to be terrified of going to Japan because the chance of dying by a rope around your neck is insanely high compared to the USA.
> I don't understand why people always discount suicides among gun deaths, as if suicides only happen to "other people".
Probably because the interesting statistic is not "gun deaths" but rather "fatal gun-related accidents" and "homicides" (with or without a gun involved). Suicides don't just "happen"; there is no "risk of suicide" which could be affected by the presence or absence of any particular tool. If you don't want die from suicide, the solution is as simple as not attempting suicide.
> there is no "risk of suicide" which could be affected by the presence or absence of any particular tool.
This is wrong though. Reducing access to means and methods is one of the best ways to prevent suicide and we see drops in rates of suicide whenever we see changes to a commonly used method.
Two of the best documented examples are when the UK changed from coal gas to natural gas, and when the UK introduced catalytic converters.
Obviously reducing access to means and methods is not the only thing we should be doing to reduce death by suicide. But it is an important part of the package of measures.
You're missing the point. You're talking about reducing the number of (successful) suicides. I'm saying that there is no risk of suicide either way because it's something that people choose to do, and choices are not risks.
You're missing the point that if someone chooses to die but uses a less lethal method then there's a good chance they do not die and are saved by medical attention.
You're making the mistake of thinking that someone makes a choice to die and is then determined to carry out that choice and will use rational thinking to chose the most lethal method. It's often not a choice they make; they're often not determined to die and people usually do not make efforts to avoid being found; choice of method is complex but tends to focus on what's easily available and quickly fatal.
Have a read of The International Handbook of Suicide Prevention, edited by Rory C. O'Connor, Jane Pirkis, because it covers all this in detail. Or you can read the NCISH research. Or you can read Professor Nav Kapur's book Suicide Prevention.
> You're missing the point that if someone chooses to die but uses a less lethal method then there's a good chance they do not die and are saved by medical attention.
Forcing someone to live when they wish to die is no better than killing someone who wishes to live. You are welcome to try to talk them out of it but have no right to interfere with their choice—whatever it may happen to be.
Suicide prevention is not "forcing someone to live". Suicidal thoughts are usually transient and any delay in suicidal action allows the person to seek help. Like I said in my first post, reducing access to means an methods is only part of the package that we need to be providing.
You keep trying to make this point: you keep trying to say that suicide is a choice that people make. I'll try again: it often is not a choice that people make. Please just go read the research. Here's a tweet about "Rapid Onset Despair": https://twitter.com/ProfLAppleby/status/939820235946971138
You especially need to pay attention to intoxication and suicide. Or are you saying that an impulsive decision made when very drunk is no different to a considered decision that is stable over months made when sober?
> no right
Since you mention rights, people have a right to life and suicide prevention respects that right. It respects that right in a way that wide-spread gun-ownership doesn't.
I live in England and the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act specifically give HCPs the right to take away people's choice in some limited situations. I don't know where you live but you almost certainly have similar laws around substituted decision making.
I'm always amazed by how few shooting fatalities there are in the US. 330M population, 33K gun deaths per annum [1]. And two thirds of the gun deaths are suicides. So that's only 10K homicides per annum. That's 1 in 33K. In the UK we have 65M population, and 800 murders per annum. That's 1 in 81K. Given that the US is so heavily armed I'd expect the gun death rate to be much higher. IMHO that demonstrates that the average person is equal to the responsibility of firearm ownership.
You can also factor out gang-related gun homocides since your average American/tourist is not involved in organized crime. Basically, the chances of being killed randomly by a mass shooting or random murderer are extremely tiny.
I will say though that even ignoring gun homicides, our average homicide rate in the USA is rather high compared to other western countries.
Tiny is relative is it not? Relative to Japany chances of getting shot are extremely high. It's also not just about getting shot, it's about being near it and having to worry about it. I've been in at least 3 shooting situtstions in my time in the USA. Once in Westwood waiting in line for movie, once in Santa Monica while eating, once in Mira Loma as a kid and if I add friends and family they've all had experiencea. They weren't shot but they should not have to we even worry about the proximity.
Go live in a safe country for a few years then come back and you'll feel what you've become insensitive to
Something doesn't look right in your numbers. In fact the Wikipedia page you quoted includes a "Gun-related homicide and suicide rates in high-income OECD countries" chart that doesn't match your conclusion.
I checked the ONS statistics[1] for England and Wales (including Scotland and Northern Ireland shouldn't make a huge difference) and it says: "There were 29 homicide victims killed by shooting in the year ending March 2018, three fewer than the previous year. The number of homicides by shooting has fluctuated between 21 and 32 over the last six years."
Are you sure that you aren't comparing apples to oranges, so gun deaths in the US against all homicides in the UK regardless of the method? Another quote from the same paper suggests that might be the case: "There were 726 homicides in the year ending March 2018, 20 more (3% increase) than in the previous year."
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, I would have assumed the chances of dying by gun assault was even lower. How was the probability of dying from a gun assault calculated? With car accidents you can generally assume random distribution, but you have to do some math with gun statistics before you can assume random distribution (remove suicides, remove gang-related deaths, etc.)
I'd be surprised if car accidents were randomly distributed.
But assuming GP is correct, or even assuming you are correct that it's an even bigger difference, I'd argue that both are way too high, and that the gun deaths even being in the same order of magnitude as car deaths is entirely preventable, and pretty shocking in itself.
You bring up a good point. Traffic fatalities in general are are a HUGE problem in the US, not just alcohol-related, and they're mostly due to poor civil engineering. Another abject failure of US governance.
