Lethal weapons: gun access and suicide - evidence that...

[E_h_e]

Lethal weapons: gun access and suicide - evidence that availability of guns increases risk of suicide

Theories about the influence of easily available firearms on suicide rates provoke considerable controversy. Some investigations suggest that populations with easy access to guns experience more suicides. Others indicate that in areas with strict gun-control laws, suicidal persons simply use other means.
Two new reports support the former argument.
"Our results offer strong evidence that the ready availability of guns increases the risk of suicide in the home," asserts a research team led by physician Arthur L. Kellermann of the University of Tennessee in Memphis.
Kellermann and his co-workers studied all home suicides -- a total of 565 -- in the most populous counties of Tennessee and Washington over a recent 32-month period. They gathered their data from police or medical examiners and in interviews with 442 "proxies," each of whom had been close to one of the suicide victims. They also interviewed 438 randomly recruited individuals matched with proxies for age, sex, and race.
Suicides committed with firearms made up 56 percent of the sample, they report in the Aug. 13 NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE. After statistically controlling for distinguishing characteristics of the suicide group -- a greater likelihood of living alone, taking prescribed psychoactive drugs, having an arrest record, abusing alcohol or illicit drugs, and failing to graduate from high school -- the researchers found that suicide victims were still much more likely than controls to have kept one or more guns at home.
Two-thirds of the suicide victims kept firearms at home, and half possessed handguns. Among controls, slightly fewer than half had firearms at home, and about one-quarter owned handguns. In homes with firearms, 86 percent of those who killed themselves used guns. In homes that did not normally harbor firearms, only 6 percent of suicides involved guns.
Serious mental illness is the strongest risk factor for suicide, the researchers note. But gun ownership showed a strong link with elevated suicide rates among those with and without a history of mental illness, they argue.
A separate study, led by psychiatrist Peter M. Marzuk of Cornell University Medical College in New York City, suggests that differences in suicide rates among communities stem largely from differences in access to various means of killing oneself.
From 1984 to 1987, the five counties of New York City had similar suicide rates among persons using methods equally available to all residents, such as guns, Marzuk and his co-workers report in the June ARCHIVES OF GENERAL PSYCHIATRY. Overall differences in suicide rates among counties, they contend, resulted mainly from varying access to lethal means other than firearms, which are subject to strict local gun-control laws. For example, fatal jumps off buildings occurred most often in the two counties with many tall residential structures.
Firearms are the most common method used in U.S. suicides, but they accounted for only 17 percent of New York City suicides, the scientists note. Gun-control laws probably suppress the city's suicide rate, particularly among white males and young black males, they assert.
COPYRIGHT 1992 Science Service, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
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Errare humanum est

[E_h_e]

Guns, Fear, the Constitution, and the Public's Health

Garen J. Wintemute, M.D., M.P.H.

It is 1992, and schoolmates Yoshihiro Hattori and Webb Haymaker have been invited to a Halloween party. Yoshi, a 16-year-old exchange student and avid dancer, wears a white tuxedo like John Travolta's in Saturday Night Fever. By mistake, they stop at a house up the block from their destination. No one answers the doorbell. Inside are Rodney and Bonnie Peairs. She opens a side door momentarily, sees the boys, and yells to her husband, "Get the gun." He does (it is a .44 magnum Smith & Wesson revolver) and reopens the door. Yoshi and Webb, by now back at the sidewalk, start to return. Yoshi exclaims, "We're here for the party!" "Freeze!" responds Peairs. Yoshi does not understand the idiom. He approaches the house, repeating his statement about the party. Peairs shoots him once in the chest. Thirty minutes later, Yoshi dies in an ambulance. Bonnie Peairs would later testify, "There was no thinking involved." Many health care professionals read of such cases without surprise, grimly recognizing in them the familiar picture of gun violence in the United States. That picture also includes the dozens killed and wounded this past year in a terrible series of mass-casualty shootings at educational institutions, shopping malls, places of business, and places of worship, beginning last April 16 at Virginia Tech (33 dead) and ending, for the moment, at a Wendy's restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida. Many of these innocent people were shot with guns that had been purchased recently and legally. In 2005, in this country, 30,694 people died from gunshot wounds; 17,002 cases were suicides, 12,352 were homicides, and 1340 were accidental, police-related, or of undetermined intent. Nearly 70,000 more people received treatment for nonfatal wounds in U.S. emergency departments. The disheartening 30% case fatality rate is 18 times that for injuries to motorcyclists. More than 80% of gun-related deaths are pronounced at the scene or in the emergency department; the wounds are simply not survivable. This reality is reflected in the fact that the $2 billion annual costs of medical care for the victims of gun violence are dwarfed by an estimated overall economic burden, including both material and intangible costs, of $100 billion.1 It's unlikely that health care professionals will soon prevent a greater proportion of shooting victims from dying; rather, we as a society must prevent shootings from occurring in the first place. Gun violence is often an unintended consequence of gun ownership. Americans have purchased millions of guns, predominantly handguns, believing that having a gun at home makes them safer. In fact, handgun purchasers substantially increase their risk of a violent death. This increase begins the moment the gun is acquired — suicide is the leading cause of death among handgun owners in the first year after purchase — and lasts for years. The risks associated with household exposure to guns apply not only to the people who buy them; epidemiologically, there can be said to be "passive" gun owners who are analogous to passive smokers. Living in a home where there are guns increases the risk of homicide by 40 to 170% and the risk of suicide by 90 to 460%. Young people who commit suicide with a gun usually use a weapon kept at home, and among women in shelters for victims of domestic violence, two thirds of those who come from homes with guns have had those guns used against them. Legislatures have misguidedly enacted a radical deregulation of gun use in the community. Thirty-five states issue a concealed-weapon permit to anyone who requests one and can legally own guns; two states have dispensed with permits altogether. Since 2005, a total of 14 states have adopted statutes that expand the range of places where people may use guns against others, eliminate any duty to retreat if possible before shooting, and grant shooters immunity from prosecution, sometimes even for injuries to bystanders.
Such policies are founded on myths. One is that increasing gun ownership decreases crime rates — a position that has been discredited.2 Gun ownership and gun violence rise and fall together. Another myth is that defensive gun use is very common. The most widely quoted estimate, 2.5 million occurrences a year, is too high by a factor of 10.3 Policies limiting gun ownership and use have positive effects, whether those limits affect high-risk guns such as assault weapons or Saturday night specials, high-risk persons such as those who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors, or high-risk venues such as gun shows. New York and Chicago, which have long restricted handgun ownership and use, had fewer homicides in 2007 than at any other time since the early 1960s. Conversely, policies that encourage the use of guns have been ineffective in deterring violence. Permissive policies regarding carrying guns have not reduced crime rates, and permissive states generally have higher rates of gun-related deaths than others do In 1976, Washington, D.C., took action that was consistent with such evidence. Having previously required that guns be registered, the District prohibited further registration of handguns, outlawed the carrying of concealed guns, and required that guns kept at home be unloaded and either disassembled or locked. These laws worked. Careful analysis linked them to reductions of 25% in gun homicide and 23% in gun suicide, with no parallel decrease (or compensatory increase) in homicide and suicide by other methods and no similar changes in nearby Maryland or Virginia.4 Homicides rebounded in the late 1980s with the advent of "crack" cocaine, but today the District's gun-suicide rate is lower than that of any state. In 2003, six District residents filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the statutes violated the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The case was dismissed, but in March 2007, a divided panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal, finding "that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms," subject to "permissible form[s] of regulatory limitation," as are the freedoms of speech and of the press.5 The District appealed, and on March 18, 2008, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. The Court is considering whether the statutes "violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other guns for private use in their homes." It will first need to decide whether such rights exist. The District argues, on the basis of the history of the Bill of Rights and judicial precedent, that the Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms only in the service of a well-regulated state militia (which was once considered a vital counterweight to a standing federal army). It argues secondarily that should the Court extend Second Amendment rights to include the possession of guns for private purposes, the statutes remain valid as reasonable limitations of those rights. No one predicts that a constitutionally protected right to use guns for private purposes, once it's been determined to exist, will remain confined to guns kept at home. Pro-gun organizations have worked effectively at the state level to expand the right to use guns in public, and all but three states generally prohibit local regulation. If people have broadly applicable gun rights under the Constitution, all laws limiting those rights — and criminal convictions based on those laws — will be subject to judicial review. Policymakers will avoid setting other limitations, knowing that court challenges will follow. Consider Yoshi Hattori's death in light of District of Columbia v. Heller. Rodney Peairs was tried for manslaughter. His lawyer summarized Peairs's defense as follows: "You have the legal right to answer everybody that comes to your door with a gun." A Louisiana jury acquitted him after 3 hours' deliberation. That state's laws now justify homicide under many circumstances, including compelling an intruder to leave a dwelling or place of business, and provide immunity from civil lawsuits in such cases. Thirteen other states have followed suit. A Supreme Court decision broadening gun rights and overturning the D.C. statutes would be widely viewed as upholding such policies. By promoting our sense of entitlement to gun use against one another, it could weaken the framework of ordered liberty that makes civil society possible. No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
Source Information
Dr. Wintemute is a professor of emergency medicine and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, Sacramento.
An interview with David Hemenway, professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, can be heard at www.nejm.org.
This article (10.1056/NEJMp0800859) was published at www.nejm.org on March 19, 2008. References
1. Cook PJ, Ludwig JL. Gun violence: the real costs. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000. 2. Wellford CF, Pepper JV, Petrie CV, eds. Firearms and violence: a critical review. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004.
3. Hemenway D. Survey research and self-defense gun use: an explanation of extreme overestimates. J Crim Law Criminol 1997;87:1430-1445. [CrossRef][ISI]
4. Loftin C, McDowall D, Wiersema B, Cottey TJ. Effects of restrictive licensing of handguns on homicide and suicide in the District of Columbia. N Engl J Med 1991;325:1615-1620. [Abstract]
5. Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007).
This article has been cited by other articles: · Gostin, L. (2008). The Right to Bear Arms: Constitutional Law, Politics, and Public Health. JAMA 300: 1575-1577 [Full Text] · Curfman, G. D., Morrissey, S., Drazen, J. M. (2008). Handgun Violence, Public Health, and the Law. NEJM 358: 1503-1504 [Full Text]
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Errare humanum est

[Anttiman]

Miltähän Japanin itsemurhatilastot näyttäisivät, jos heille annettaisiin lupia tuliaseisiin...? Nytkin ne ovat suuremmat kuin USAn vastaavat.

Tuo jälkimmäinen on aikamoista tuubaa. Suurin osa aseväkivallasta tapahtuu suurkaupunkien jengien ja muiden rikollisten toteuttamana. Alun esimerkki osoittaa mielestäni koko jutun tarkoitushakuisuuden. Aseiden määrä on noussut tasaisesti viimeiset sata vuotta. Rikollisuus ja väkivalta ovat välillä nousseet ja laskeneet ilman selvää korrelaatiota aseiden määrään. Myöskään vertailevat havainnot eri maiden kesken eivät tue vätettä, että aseiden määrä korreloisi itsemurhien tai väkivaltarikoksien kanssa. Jutun "faktat" eivät kestä syvällisempää tarkastelua.

[aop]

E_h_e tekee taas mitä parhaiten osaa, copy-pasteaa...
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Kaikki mitä haluaisin tehdä on joko moraalitonta, vaarallista tai lihottavaa.

[Solifer]

Käsittääkseni itsemurha ei ole lainvastainen teko kunhan ei vaaranna muita esim ajamalla vastaantulevan rekan keulaan.

Tietenkin sosdem-valtioita harmittaa menetetyt verotulot ja se että "onnela" ei joillekin kaikesta huolimatta kelpaa.

Jos itsemurhia halutaan estää lainsäädännöllä niin kiellettäköön itsemurhat. Välineiden kieltäminen on itse ongelman väistelyä eikä johda toivottuun lopputulokseen.

USAssa ovat muuten itsemurhat nousussa aselakien tiukennuksista huolimatta. MOT.

[E_h_e]

Viranomaiset ja lainsäätäjät yrittivät keksiä vastatoimia epätoivoisten ihmisten teoille. Vuoden 1734 laki määräsi vesileipävankeutta ja raippoja sille, joka "petollisesti tunnusta, että hän sencaldaisen työn tehnyt on, joca cuoleman-rangaistuxen ansaitze". Sama rangaistus seurasi itsemurhayrityksestä.
...
Vuonna 1754 lähetettiin kuninkaallinen kiertokirje hovioikeuksille "koskien rangaistuksen kiristämistä niille, jotka syyllistyvät murhaan elämänväsymyksestä tai välttääkseen ruumiillisen rangaistuksen". Rangaistuksen kiristäminen merkitsi kahden päivän seisomista julkisella paikalla kaularaudoissa sekä miehille raipparangaistusta ja naisille piiskausta.
Rangaistuskäytäntö alkoi lieventyä vähitellen. 1840-luvun jälkeen ei Suomessa enää rangaistu itsemurhayrityksistä.
...
Virallisesti itsemurhayrityksen kieltävä pykälä tosin säilyi laissa aina vuoteen 1894, jolloin vuoden 1889 rikoslaki astui voimaan. Ruotsissa vuoden 1864 uusi rikoslaki ei rangaissut itsemurhasta tai itsemurhayrityksestä.
...
http://yliopistolehti.helsinki.fi/1996_14/ylart3.htm
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Errare humanum est

[mozambique]

"Kyllä aseita on ihan liikaa. "

"Aseiden määrää pitäisi varmasti vähentää. "

"On se kamalaa kun Suomessa on niin paljon aseita kuin Absurdistanissa. "

jne. jne.

Tuontapaisia kommentteja on ollut eri palstat väärällään viime aikoina. Huomattavan moni tuntuu pitävän aseiden määrää sinänsä vaarallisena asiana, ja jonkin määrittelemättömän vaaran vähenevän kun aseiden määrää vähennetään.

Sama oletus on selvästi myös sisäministeriön aselupakäytäntöjen kehittämisen taustalla - ihan kirjattuina periaatteina lupahallinnon tavoiteasetannassa, että myönnettävien lupien määrää pitää pienentää ja enemmän lupia pitää peruuttaa.

No, juttu on niin että luvallisten aseiden määrä ei korreloi niillä tehtävien väkivallantekojen määrään mitenkään. Siitä ei ole mitään näyttöä mistään päin maailmaa. Se on väärä johtopäätös.

Väkivaltarikollisuutta ilmenee eri tavoin eri yhteiskunnissa ja kehitystrendit seuraavat muita yhteiskunnallisia ilmiöitä. Erilaisten politiikan muutosten seurauksena myös väkivaltarikollisuuden eri piirteet voivat muuttuakin, mutta vielä useammin koeksistenssi sotketaan kausaliteettiin - siis luullaan jotakin muutosta seuraukseksi toisesta vaikka ne vain esiintyvät samaan aikaan eikä mitään tosiasiallista yhteyttä voikaan osoittaa. Usein tarkemmassa tarkastelussa osoittautuu että syy-yhteys johonkin ihan toiseen edeltävään muutokseen olisikin osoitettavissa.

Erilaisten poliittisten toimenpiteiden vaikutukset ovat täysin riippuvaisia siitä nimenomaisesta yhteiskunnasta, jossa ollaan, ja tulosten arvioinnissa pitäisi aina tukeutua voimakkaasti havainnoituun lähtötilaan ennen muutosta. Tämän takia vaikkapa Britannian (no longer Great, I'm afraid) asekieltojen jälkeistä aikaa on täysin turha käyttää minään argumenttina asekielloille Suomessa, noin esimerkiksi. Faktat ovat, että asekieltojen jälkeen väkivaltarikollisuus Britanniassa on vain kasvanut, mukaanlukien ampuma-aseiden käyttö rikoksissa. Kuinka paljon se olisi muuttunut ja mihin suuntaan, jos kieltoja ei olisi keksitty, on tuntematon asia ja siksi myös jää.

Samoin olisi täysin tyhjänpäiväistä vaikkapa yrittää vetää jotain johtopäätöksiä Floridan väkivaltarikollisuuden voimakkaasta vähenemisestä kun siellä alettiin rutiininomaisesti myöntää aseenkantolupia 1987 alkaen. Lähtötilannekin on täysin eriluonteinen kuin Suomen.

Mutta: oletus siitä, että aselupien määrää väen vängällä vähentämällä "yleinen järjestys ja turvallisuus" (olisi muuten aika vetää tuostakin eufemismihirviöstä kunnon analyysi) jotenkin paranisi, on perusteeton, harhainen ajatus joka ei perustu tosiasioihin. Se on luulo, toive tai uskomus, ei lähempää tarkastelua kestävä politiikan peruste. Väärä johtopäätös.
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An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur.

[hq]

Mitenköhän tämä korreloi sen asian kanssa mitä VAHO yrittää vaieta kuoliaaksi, eli vankien itsemurhien huomattavan korkea määrä Suomessa. Siitä voi ainakin olla kohtalaisen varma ettei vankiloissa ainakaan kovin moni itseään hengiltä ammu, joten ehkä joku, jossakin voisi vihdoinkin sisäistää että välineurheiluista ei itsareissa nyt ensinkään ole kysymys. Köydenpätkäkin riittää siihen temppuun mainiosti.

[Aatu Aave]

Nyt jokainen kunnon aseharrastaja ja metsästäjä, kun on päättänyt tehdä seppukut,- on japania ja tarkoittaa " kuppi nurin" eli lopettaa syömisen.
Käyttää kaikkia muita olemassa olevia ja koeteltuja keinoja mutta unohtaa tyystin ampuma-aseet.
Näin toimien ei lietsota asevastaisuutta.

[Trilisser]

Kylläpä nuo 2 ensimmäistä viestiä oli täyttä propagandaa. Ihmetellä voi esim. miksi ko. lääkärin mielestä lainkuuliasella kansalaisella tulisi olla "pakenemisvelvoite" (duty to retreat). Kysymyksessähän on loppujen lopuksi velvoite lainkuuliaselle kansalaiselle luopua omista laillisista oikeuksista jotta lainrikkoja voi vapaasti rikkoa lakia.

Tuo lähde "The New England Journal of Medicine" on muutenkin tunnettu asevastaisen propagandan ja klintoniittien temmellyskenttänä.