re need info on and suicide for refutation in article qmuv innl s dns nmsu edu loki acca nmsu edu entropic destroyer writes the following is quoted from the tail end of a rather condescending article about paxton quigley that appeared in us snooze and world lies sorry i think it was in the wall street journal and was repeated in the colorado people s daily a student newspaper at the university of colorado at boulder a study of residential gunsot deaths in king county wash found that a gun in the home was times more likely to be used to kill its owner spouse a friend or child than to kill an intruder the used to kill is the heart of the misinformation it s one of those technically accurate phrasings that conveys the wrong impression what mr quiqley is more than aware of i m sure is that when people read this they think violent arguments where one member of the family grabs a gun and shoots another thereby creating a tragic situation which could easily have been avoided had the gun not been there or a tragic accident especially involving a child unfortunately that s not the way things stack up the majority of that times i believe are suicides that is someone intentionally took a firearm and shot themselves intending to kill themselves and why it s popular to try and blame suicides on guns the evidence doesn t support this internal studies as well as comparative studies with other countries indicate that cultural factors far outweigh whether a person will kill themselves or not japan for instance has a slightly higher rate than the u s there people jump off buildings according to the national crime survey of violent crime is commited by non strangers which mistakenly has been generalized regarding the king county study to mean friends and family that is mr quigley and others who quote this statistic are banking on the mental image that a friend family member or child equates to a loving relationship and that it was cut short in a moment of anger unfortunately all too often husbands beat and kill wives children assault parents or vice versa most rapes are commited by someone known to the victim for instance essentially that a gun was used against a friend or family member doesn t mean they weren t trying to hurt the other person crime is highest among poor urban families and those are also the areas most at risk for family problems especially violent ones a son in a gang may not be as loving toward his parents if they disapprove than a suburban kid might finally it hinges on the fallacy that a dead intruder is the only value of a self defense firearm using the minimum figures i worked out using the ncs i got about an ratio between deadly self defenses justifiable homicides and with gun self defenses between the fbi uniform crime report and the ncs there s an enormous amount of data and anybody with the calculator can crunch the numbers as such it is incorrect to assume that a dead body is the only valid means of determining the success of such a defense since according to the ncs which has been considered by many to seriously under report defenses there were far more successful with gun defenses than intruders killed not it also confines itself to the home where attack by a friend or family member is far far more likely and excludes any defense which occurs outside the home i believe a large number occur in businesses studies by the western psychiatric institute in pittsburgh found that the mere presence of a gun in the home sharply incresases the likelihood a family member will commit suicide even in the absence of psychiatric illness i have not seen the exact data for this so i can t comment i will point out canada s and japan s suicide rate as indications that culture far more than firearm availability affect suicide rates there was also a comparative study between canada for what it s worth considering the difficulty of comparing across cultural lines published in the new england journal of medicine i can get the exact cite if you need it that concluded that restrictive firearm laws would not significantly impact the over all suicide rate david veal univ of tenn div of cont education info services group pa utkvm utk edu i still remember the way you laughed the day your pushed me down the elevator shaft i m beginning to think you don t love me anymore weird al
