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There’s no evidence of correlation or a causal link between guns and suicides. In countries with guns available, men use guns for suicide. In countries withou

There’s no evidence of correlation or a causal link between guns and suicides. In countries with guns available, men use guns for suicide. In countries without, men use hanging. Either way, it’s intentionally misleading to lump suicide in with murder and accidents.

taeric 4y ago
This somewhat begs the question that there are the same rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning. So, no, it is not intentionally misleading, but it does need more data to show it is meaningful.
- teakettle42 4y ago
  > This somewhat begs the question that there are the same rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning. It’s not hard to find examples; Japan has a much higher rate of suicide. No guns. Almost universally, men use guns or hanging, depending on what’s locally available. > So, no, it is not intentionally misleading They’re juking the stats to be able to make proclamations like “guns are the leading cause of death for children”. When most people hear that, panic bells start ringing. They assume this means school shootings are killing an incredible number of children each year. This is a crisis! People don’t realize that to manufacture that number, activists had to extend “children” to 19 years old, and include “suicide”. It’s intentionally misleading. If only they’d dedicate the same energy to exploring why our educational and cultural institutions are failing teenagers so spectacularly that they’re suiciding at unprecedented rates.
  - taeric 4y ago
    I'll grant it can be misleading. I don't think it necessarily is. I say this as someone that has had gun suicides in the family. I also have Saturday Night Special running through my head, now... I don't understand the fixation that counting kids as up to 19 and including suicide is somehow a concern. Seems generally alarming that people under 21 is that high for this statistic, period. Edit: Per https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/United-States/Crime/Suicide-rates https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/Unit...; no, Japan is not much higher than the US. It isn't even higher. (I'm confused, do you have a better source?) Edit2: Ok, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... has it higher, but doesn't look "much" higher. Though, I grant that is a subjective term. Edit3: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide is an interesting source on this. I find it amusing that they are able to have articles that mention limiting access to pesticides as an effective way to reduce suicides, but don't look at limiting access to guns. It is listed in the top three methods. (Sadly, I'm stepping away from computer for a while now. Will be delighted to engage more on this later, but will probably be a day or so before I remember to check back here.)
  - glandium 4y ago
    > Japan has a much higher rate of suicide. Maybe it was _much_ higher a very long time ago, but it has been on a downwards path for a long time. And the US's on an upwards path... for so long that it has actually past Japan. So not only is Japan's suicide rate not _much_ higher, but it has been, for a few years, slightly lower.
    - rsanek 4y ago
      Source here: https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHSUICIDEASDR?lang=en https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHSUICIDEASDR?lang=e... 2019, per 100k data (average of both/male/female): US: 14.5 / 22.4 / 6.8 Japan: 12.2 / 17.5 / 6.9
- godelski 4y ago
  > This somewhat begs the question that there are the same rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning I think if you look at gun deaths and suicide you're going to have significant autocorrelation. 60% of gun deaths are suicide, so the data is baked in. But I have another correlation that may be more fruitful and interesting. It isn't 1 to 1, but there is significant overlap with (per capita normalized) overdoses[0] and gun death rates[1]. We'd have to dig deeper, but I think it wouldn't be surprising to find that rates of gun suicide and overdoses has many similar root causal factors. The north east seems to be the biggest mismatch [0] https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-da...
  - taeric 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you are claiming. Seems safe to assume that suicides do correlate in numbers. Question is if they substitute in magnitude. That is, if it isn't 1:1 in correlation, then it is reasonable that you can prevent suicides by limiting access to guns. Just as you can prevent suicides by limiting access to drugs. The a reason that is not valid?
    - godelski 4y ago
      > That is, if it isn't 1:1 in correlation, then it is reasonable that you can prevent suicides by limiting access to guns. The problem here is you're assuming that there's a singular dominant causal factor. You don't need a one-to-one relationship for either a weak or strong causal relationship. On the other hand, what I'm claiming is that there are causal relationships between gun suicides and drug overdoses. That solving one will help solve another if we look at the causes from a standpoint beyond the first order viewpoint. We need to ask why people are depressed and what in society is causing that. I'm sure you'll recognize that this issue is likely rather complex. I think you'll agree that getting to the root of this issue will save more lives overall (some people will for sure just choose an alternative method of suicide -- such as drugs -- though you are also likely to save a few that are acting in the moment and getting a gun -- which is why waiting periods can be helpful. But either way, they are still depressed, which is a problem we need to solve).
godelski 4y ago
> There’s no evidence of correlation or a causal link between guns and suicides. There's definitely evidence of correlation. But the thing is that there are clearly other factors. Access to guns is definitely a causal variable (you can't shoot someone unless you have a gun) but the question is if it is weak or strong. I think it is pretty clear that this is a weak causal variable. It's clearly naive to think that simply having a gun makes one more likely to murder someone or kill yourself. Similarly women do not are not subject to gun deaths (suicide nor homicide: killer or victim) at nearly the same rate as men when controlling for household ownership. This is why I've encouraged people to look at a more complex picture. Clearly suicide, homicide, and mass shootings have different principle causal variables. There's definitely overlap as well. People are comparing to European countries and Australia simply based on number of guns. But this ignores a lot of other factors like access to health care, household debt, trust in government, social mobility, and many other things. The US consumes far more opioids per capita than European countries. We also have higher suicide rates. I'm willing to bet that there's some coupling relationships here. But I agree it is misleading to lump homicide and suicide together. There's plenty of statistical paradoxes that depend on aggregating data that shouldn't be aggregated. If we over-aggregate data we'll have no hope of solving any of these issues. I'd make the argument that it is of the upmost importance that we be nuanced in these conversations and communicate in good faith. We must have self doubt in our own models. It is a complex problem, we've been handcuffed in obtaining data (forcing aggregation), and people with agendas are trying to oversimplify the problem and have us make decisions based purely on emotions. We live in the information age yet it is sad we have so little here and think so broadly about this problem. It is getting people killed. One thing to note is that there's a pretty decent overlap between gun deaths/capita and drug overdoses/capita https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-da...

taeric 4y ago

This somewhat begs the question that there are the same rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning. So, no, it is not intentionally misleading, but it does need more data to show it is meaningful.

teakettle42 4y ago
> This somewhat begs the question that there are the same rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning. It’s not hard to find examples; Japan has a much higher rate of suicide. No guns. Almost universally, men use guns or hanging, depending on what’s locally available. > So, no, it is not intentionally misleading They’re juking the stats to be able to make proclamations like “guns are the leading cause of death for children”. When most people hear that, panic bells start ringing. They assume this means school shootings are killing an incredible number of children each year. This is a crisis! People don’t realize that to manufacture that number, activists had to extend “children” to 19 years old, and include “suicide”. It’s intentionally misleading. If only they’d dedicate the same energy to exploring why our educational and cultural institutions are failing teenagers so spectacularly that they’re suiciding at unprecedented rates.
- taeric 4y ago
  I'll grant it can be misleading. I don't think it necessarily is. I say this as someone that has had gun suicides in the family. I also have Saturday Night Special running through my head, now... I don't understand the fixation that counting kids as up to 19 and including suicide is somehow a concern. Seems generally alarming that people under 21 is that high for this statistic, period. Edit: Per https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/United-States/Crime/Suicide-rates https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/Unit...; no, Japan is not much higher than the US. It isn't even higher. (I'm confused, do you have a better source?) Edit2: Ok, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... has it higher, but doesn't look "much" higher. Though, I grant that is a subjective term. Edit3: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide is an interesting source on this. I find it amusing that they are able to have articles that mention limiting access to pesticides as an effective way to reduce suicides, but don't look at limiting access to guns. It is listed in the top three methods. (Sadly, I'm stepping away from computer for a while now. Will be delighted to engage more on this later, but will probably be a day or so before I remember to check back here.)
- glandium 4y ago
  > Japan has a much higher rate of suicide. Maybe it was _much_ higher a very long time ago, but it has been on a downwards path for a long time. And the US's on an upwards path... for so long that it has actually past Japan. So not only is Japan's suicide rate not _much_ higher, but it has been, for a few years, slightly lower.
  - rsanek 4y ago
    Source here: https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHSUICIDEASDR?lang=en https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHSUICIDEASDR?lang=e... 2019, per 100k data (average of both/male/female): US: 14.5 / 22.4 / 6.8 Japan: 12.2 / 17.5 / 6.9
godelski 4y ago
> This somewhat begs the question that there are the same rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning I think if you look at gun deaths and suicide you're going to have significant autocorrelation. 60% of gun deaths are suicide, so the data is baked in. But I have another correlation that may be more fruitful and interesting. It isn't 1 to 1, but there is significant overlap with (per capita normalized) overdoses[0] and gun death rates[1]. We'd have to dig deeper, but I think it wouldn't be surprising to find that rates of gun suicide and overdoses has many similar root causal factors. The north east seems to be the biggest mismatch [0] https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-da...
- taeric 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you are claiming. Seems safe to assume that suicides do correlate in numbers. Question is if they substitute in magnitude. That is, if it isn't 1:1 in correlation, then it is reasonable that you can prevent suicides by limiting access to guns. Just as you can prevent suicides by limiting access to drugs. The a reason that is not valid?
  - godelski 4y ago
    > That is, if it isn't 1:1 in correlation, then it is reasonable that you can prevent suicides by limiting access to guns. The problem here is you're assuming that there's a singular dominant causal factor. You don't need a one-to-one relationship for either a weak or strong causal relationship. On the other hand, what I'm claiming is that there are causal relationships between gun suicides and drug overdoses. That solving one will help solve another if we look at the causes from a standpoint beyond the first order viewpoint. We need to ask why people are depressed and what in society is causing that. I'm sure you'll recognize that this issue is likely rather complex. I think you'll agree that getting to the root of this issue will save more lives overall (some people will for sure just choose an alternative method of suicide -- such as drugs -- though you are also likely to save a few that are acting in the moment and getting a gun -- which is why waiting periods can be helpful. But either way, they are still depressed, which is a problem we need to solve).

godelski 4y ago

> There’s no evidence of correlation or a causal link between guns and suicides. There's definitely evidence of correlation. But the thing is that there are clearly other factors. Access to guns is definitely a causal variable (you can't shoot someone unless you have a gun) but the question is if it is weak or strong. I think it is pretty clear that this is a weak causal variable. It's clearly naive to think that simply having a gun makes one more likely to murder someone or kill yourself. Similarly women do not are not subject to gun deaths (suicide nor homicide: killer or victim) at nearly the same rate as men when controlling for household ownership. This is why I've encouraged people to look at a more complex picture. Clearly suicide, homicide, and mass shootings have different principle causal variables. There's definitely overlap as well. People are comparing to European countries and Australia simply based on number of guns. But this ignores a lot of other factors like access to health care, household debt, trust in government, social mobility, and many other things. The US consumes far more opioids per capita than European countries. We also have higher suicide rates. I'm willing to bet that there's some coupling relationships here. But I agree it is misleading to lump homicide and suicide together. There's plenty of statistical paradoxes that depend on aggregating data that shouldn't be aggregated. If we over-aggregate data we'll have no hope of solving any of these issues. I'd make the argument that it is of the upmost importance that we be nuanced in these conversations and communicate in good faith. We must have self doubt in our own models. It is a complex problem, we've been handcuffed in obtaining data (forcing aggregation), and people with agendas are trying to oversimplify the problem and have us make decisions based purely on emotions. We live in the information age yet it is sad we have so little here and think so broadly about this problem. It is getting people killed. One thing to note is that there's a pretty decent overlap between gun deaths/capita and drug overdoses/capita https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-da...