Re: Guns don't kill people...
Posted by:
Ghost of Robin Williams
()
Date: August 31, 2014 03:32PM
3KJcU Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As it turns out, one of the most remarkable
> discoveries about suicide and how to reduce it
> occurred utterly by chance. It came about not
> through some breakthrough in pharmacology or the
> treatment of mental illness but rather through an
> energy-conversion scheme carried out in Britain in
> the 1960s and ’70s. Among those familiar with
> the account, it is often referred to simply as
> “the British coal-gas story.”
>
As it turns out, your example is the standard, overly simplistic one Googled up by people who don't really know what they're talking about and is disputed with respect to the gun equivalent on any number of bases.
Although there likely was some degree of association, looking at things based on that factor alone and in terms of aggregate statistics masks more significant factors and distinctions which make any actual reduction appear much smaller. As has been pointed out many times since.
First, the "drop" was not from some baseline trend which existed prior to. It reflects a drop from a peak in 1962-1963 back more to historical levels. So claiming a "drop" is somewhat misleading to begin with. In the same way that murder stats have "dropped" when considered against the surge from the crack epidemic in the 80s back to more normal levels. The increase at least partially being explained by a typical rise in suicide rates post-war among the affected age group (as we also see to some degree now). You can see the same rise and drop outside of the UK, just as you can see a *greater* drop in murder rates in the US after Australia imposed its gun ban there, which obviously is unrelated.
Second, when viewed in the aggregate, it masks significant distinctions among various groups within. That's reflected in CO suicides dropping by 1/2 but overall suicides dropping only by 1/3. In the case of men, the largest group, they mostly simply substituted other methods. i.e., as CO suicides declined, the use of other methods rose. There was some reduction but not nearly as large as presented. Same with females and even more so versus CO specifically compared to other methods (since women tend to use 'easier' methods to begin with, CO being relatively easy and available).
Related to the above, it also looks at suicide in the aggregate as a single-type event. That's not the case. The bulk of the 1/3 difference was among the elderly who also tend to look for easier end-of-life methods. That same effect would not apply in the case of, for example, middle-aged, substance abusing white men in the US who are more inclined to end it with a gun. i.e., While an old lady with terminal illness may become depressed to the point that she wants to easily end it all by sticking her head in an oven, they're never very likely to ever put a barrel in their mouth. On the other hand, the alcohol/drug abusing male with a history of depression has no such reservations. Nor does the clinically mental teenager who hangs themselves, etc. Suicide/parasuicide/impulsive suicide is not the same across all such groups so what affects one has far less of an effect on others. Jumpers tend to have a very high impulsive rate relative to other methods, so keeping people off of popular bridges does work to some degree. Guns not so much. While overall stats may be reduced as a result of some preventive approach made, the change is not applicable across all subgroups within.
Third, it looks at only one population and assumes that applies overall. The same change was made in Scotland, yet the effect was not the same. Overall suicide rates did decrease, again from a peak also seen elsewhere, but increased and remained higher than the baseline prior to the late 50s-early 60s. In fact, as above, you can see the same general trend in a number ofother Western countries which did nothing at all related to coal gas.
And on and on through numerous other details which the simplistic example hides.
The fact is, as evidenced by the vast bulk of research, that beyond a relatively tiny number, very few people impulsively commit suicide with a gun. Trying to reduce gun-related suicide through gun control is about the equivalent of trying to prevent hanging suicides via rope control.