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Who Knew? The Leading Cause Of Gun Death Is Suicide
Forbes.com ^ | Jan 22, 2013 | Rpger Kay

Posted on 01/30/2013 7:28:34 AM PST by I still care

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column about how the gun-death data showed a very weak correlation with gun-law strictness. I used data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) to derive a gun-homicide rate.

In the comments section, a reader pointed me toward more-detailed data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), which captures death-certificate data from all the states. Despite interference by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the CDC has kept up the basic data, if not research into the details of who, how, and why.

But what we can see from this data is astonishing. First off, the national data — as depicted in this chart done up by Kaiser Family Foundation-backed statehealthfacts.org — looks like an electoral map, with red states (blue on this map) having high gun death rates, and blue states (orange in this case) having low ones.

Without even looking into the detail of gun-law strictness by state, we know that the strict states correlate highly with the (politically) blue states like New York and Massachusetts, and the open-gun-law states match up pretty well with the (politically) red ones.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; cdc; gun; guncontrol; gundeaths; guns; lies; murder; obfuscation; secondamendment; statistics; suicide; suicides
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I know this is a week old, but seems no one found it before this. I know nothing about this columnist. He sounds leftish, and seems to almost imply that if they ban guns, all those silly people committing suicide will stop because it's too painful. That seems idiotic, to me. You have to be in a massive amount of emotional pain to commit suicide, far more than may be deterred by the difference between a gun or say, jumping off a bridge.

He has a nice chart about how suicide by gun is more common in the red states - does he have one showing how suicide rates are less in blue states also? Bet the opposite is true. My guess is the alienation caused by the destruction of the family and devastation of moral compasses would show suicide is actually higher in blue states. They just find other ways to off themselves, even slo-mo ways that don't count officially as suicide, like drug abuse.

1 posted on 01/30/2013 7:28:40 AM PST by I still care
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To: I still care

More painful? Attempts with guns can miss the mark. Jumping from a certain height onto certain surfaces is pretty foolproof, and you due instantly, too. There are the relatively painless options of slitting wrists or sleeping pills. I would go with C-4, which blows you up faster than you can feel pain.


2 posted on 01/30/2013 7:35:00 AM PST by Tublecane
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To: I still care

GLORIA: Do you know that sixty percent of all deaths in America are caused by guns?
ARCHIE: Would it make you feel any better if they was pushed out of windows?


3 posted on 01/30/2013 7:35:51 AM PST by BO Stinkss
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To: I still care

Well he can’t be much of a liberal, he wants to take away peoples right to choose!


4 posted on 01/30/2013 7:36:13 AM PST by pepperdog ( I still get a thrill up my leg when spell check doesn't recognize the name/word Obama!)
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To: I still care
Here is the chart.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=113&cat=2

Rereading the article, this man is an idiot, for someone that has a column and can find a chart and put a sentence together. The NRA kept his from finding statistical info about the number of people that commit suicide by gun? He can't find a chart about suicide rates NOT by gun? He can't find a chart on suicide rates in blue states? He really, really thinks that not having guns will cut the suicide rate?

The opposite is true - people kill themselves when they feel they have lost control over their lives. And for seizing control over people's lives, and tying them up in a neat little unescapable box, there's nothing better than the left.

5 posted on 01/30/2013 7:41:18 AM PST by I still care (I miss my friends, bagels, and the NYC skyline - but not the taxes. I love the South.)
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To: Tublecane
...and you due instantly, too.

Yeah, you be due, way overdue........

6 posted on 01/30/2013 7:44:24 AM PST by Red Badger (Lincoln freed the slaves. Obama just got them ALL back......................)
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To: I still care

If the ‘suicide by gun’ statistics are subtracted from the overall ‘gun deaths’ totals, I bet the picture changes drastically to more in blue states than red.............


7 posted on 01/30/2013 7:47:59 AM PST by Red Badger (Lincoln freed the slaves. Obama just got them ALL back......................)
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To: I still care


8 posted on 01/30/2013 7:51:55 AM PST by Iron Munro (I Miss America, don't you?)
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To: I still care; Tublecane
Contrary to the weird policy-justifying fantasies of the left suicide by gun is not painless or instant. I recall a story of a lawyer who committed suicide with a .38 revolver. He fired five shots into the side and front of his head as his secretary struggled to unlock the door to his office. He lived for some time after that in horrendous agony. A kid that I knew from another church when I was a boy put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He got the angle wrong and only managed to blow his face off. The last I heard he is still alive in an institution.

Real life isn't like the movies. It is messy and imprecise.

9 posted on 01/30/2013 8:01:06 AM PST by jboot (This isn't your father's America. Stay safe and keep your powder dry.)
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To: Iron Munro

Why are unintentional falls and unintentional injuries in seperate categories? Doesn’t a fall injur you to death?


10 posted on 01/30/2013 8:03:49 AM PST by Tublecane
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To: jboot

The trick is to hit the brain stem. Which can be problematic, as it’s hard to shoot yourself from behind, and going in from the front isn’t easy to line up, even if you are in your right mind and know what you’re doing. Fortunately, people in their right minds with the patience to plan and follow through aren’t apt to kill themselves.

Maybe better to pay a Marine sniper to do it. Or post seditious “right wing extremist” chatter on the internet and wait for Obama to dispatch a drone.


11 posted on 01/30/2013 8:10:27 AM PST by Tublecane
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To: I still care
FACT Check: Freeper please proof.

The reference the author uses is Kaiser Family Foundation. It states that Wyoming 18.1 gun deaths per 100,000 people.

The states population for 2011 was 568,158. I checked the number of all murders for 2011, and it was reported at 18. So already, there is something wrong with the Kaiser data.

My math is that the murder rate is then 3.17 per 100,000. I used a division rate 5.68.

12 posted on 01/30/2013 8:12:45 AM PST by 11th Commandment (http://www.thirty-thousand.org/)
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To: I still care

The Author has no understanding of Human Ingenuity. The old saying is as true today as it was generations ago, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way”.

He only has an agenda.

As long as Gravity exists, so will Suicide. If I am not mistaken, committing Suicide is against the Law in many States. Obviously, Suicide Control is not working.


13 posted on 01/30/2013 8:16:52 AM PST by Kickass Conservative (I only Fear a Government that doesn't Fear me.)
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To: I still care
ADDENDUM: Countries with strict gun control laws have higher suicide rates than those without.

WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Volume 30, Number 2, Spring 2007 (pp. 649-694)

14 posted on 01/30/2013 8:40:46 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (TYRANNY: When the people fear the politicians. LIBERTY: When the politicians fear the people.)
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To: I still care
"The Leading Cause Of Gun Death Is Suicide"

I'm surprised The Left has a problem with this stat since they're such big euthanisia fans...
15 posted on 01/30/2013 8:41:02 AM PST by indthkr
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To: I still care

People who focus on guns rather than the criminals who harm with the gun are immature and childish in their reasoning. It is faulty reasoning. It is retarded reasoning.


16 posted on 01/30/2013 8:53:20 AM PST by Dogbert41
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To: Tublecane

The trick is to hit the brain stem. Which can be problematic, as it’s hard to shoot yourself from behind, and going in from the front isn’t easy to line up, even if you are in your right mind and know what you’re doing. Fortunately, people in their right minds with the patience to plan and follow through aren’t apt to kill themselves.

Just market a helmet that the user straps on and there is tube through which the barrel is put into that assures the correct angle....

Pretty sure that would get taken off of the market...


17 posted on 01/30/2013 9:05:13 AM PST by GraceG
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To: pepperdog; All

“gun deaths” is a propaganda metric. It is designed to misinform and channel the debate.

To illustrate this, consider “hospital deaths”.

In developed countries, there are millions of hospital deaths. The more hospitals in a country, the more hospital deaths. We must ban hospitals, as that will stop all hospital deaths.


18 posted on 01/30/2013 9:14:59 AM PST by marktwain (The MSM must die for the Republic to live. Long live the new media!)
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To: marktwain

Japan has extreme gun control, and they have a higher rate of suicide than the U.S. Instead of guns, they use subways, knives and cars to kill themselves. The tool used is irrelevant.


19 posted on 01/30/2013 9:21:23 AM PST by aimhigh ( Guns do not kill people. Planned Parenthood kills people.)
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To: Tublecane

i heard that shooting in mouth would kill you


20 posted on 01/30/2013 9:23:16 AM PST by ncpatriot
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