The problem with saying that "owning a gun doesn't contribute to suicide" is that there is a clear and strong statistical correlation between gun availability a

The problem with saying that "owning a gun doesn't contribute to suicide" is that there is a clear and strong statistical correlation between gun availability and suicide. If gun ownership doesn't contribute to suicide, by lowering the planning threshold (or some other mechanism), then you have to find some other hidden factor that would both cause an increase in gun ownership and an increase in suicide. Now, that doesn't mean that I necessarily favor gun confiscation. But there's a huge difference between saying, "Yes, there is a correlation between gun ownership and suicide, but that's outweighed by the fact that gun ownership is guaranteed by the Constitution," and saying, "No, there is no correlation between gun ownership and suicide." The first is an arguable and defensible point. The second is objectively false.