[I still care]

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.

[Tublecane]

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.

[BO Stinkss]

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?

[pepperdog]

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

[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.

[Red Badger]

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.............

[Iron Munro]

[jboot]

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.

[11th Commandment]

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.

[Kickass Conservative]

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.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

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)

[indthkr]

"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...

[Dogbert41]

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.

[Yo-Yo]

Who Knew?

I did.

[SaraJohnson]

Suicide is high because hate-filled radicals like Obama and his pals create a depressing economy and broken spirits.