You were talking about "impact guns have on suicide rates".
People are using method that they think is most successful, and if they own gun, it's very probable that they will use it.
>And "not being the primary way of suicide" is a really weak argument against tightening gun controls to save people's lives. Even if it is "just" 10% in Europe, 30% in Switzerland and about 50% in the US. Those lives are very much worth saving, and at least in Europe, it's already the norm to take away guns from people who have these problems.
This is a weak argument, because it implies that by taking guns, people won't commit suicide, when they may just do it by any other method.
Which the high rates of suicide in several other countries with way less gun ownership than in US point to.
By the way, using emotionally charged statements like "those lives are very much worth saving" when your interlocutor did not suggest anything otherwise is at the very least unpleasant discussion style.
>This is a weak argument, because it implies that by taking guns, people won't commit suicide, when they may just do it by any other method.
That argument is correct; a major suicide prevention measure is taking away methods. When countries switched from coal gas to natural gas, suicide rate went down for this reason.
Suicide is largely a in-the-moment decision and guns make it very easy to act on it.
>Which the high rates of suicide in several other countries with way less gun ownership than in US point to.
I don't think that's true, they may just have a different culture that leads to more suicide. Gun ownership isn't the only difference between the USA and other countries.
People are quite particular about their methods of suicide.
They usually don't want to have any pain, but prefer to die instantly. No method checks as many of these boxes as using a gun.
I got the previous argument as saying exactly that the main method of suicide in Europe is hanging, and not shooting, and therefor taking guns away from most people who don't have a positive need to be armed or with doubts about their reliability wouldn't affect suicides in a significant manner. Otherwise citing that article makes no sense to me, since it actually points to guns being a major factor.
It's impossible to infer the effect of gun ownership on suicide rates by looking at countries. Too many confounding factors, too little number of countries. Same goes for states in the US.
Suicide is a very culturally shaped topic, and on top of that it is affected by the health system, economy and various other factors.
> because it implies that by taking guns, people won't commit suicide, when they may just do it by any other method.
We know that method substitution does happen, but people would be using a less lethal method instead of a very lethal method so that alone will save lives. Also, not everyone will use a different method. We don't really know what the rates are for people switching methods.
Reducing access to means and methods is about the most important short term suicide prevention measure we can take, alongside all the other stuff we need to help people avoid falling into suicidal thinking.
People are using method that they think is most successful, and if they own gun, it's very probable that they will use it.
>And "not being the primary way of suicide" is a really weak argument against tightening gun controls to save people's lives. Even if it is "just" 10% in Europe, 30% in Switzerland and about 50% in the US. Those lives are very much worth saving, and at least in Europe, it's already the norm to take away guns from people who have these problems.
This is a weak argument, because it implies that by taking guns, people won't commit suicide, when they may just do it by any other method.
Which the high rates of suicide in several other countries with way less gun ownership than in US point to.
By the way, using emotionally charged statements like "those lives are very much worth saving" when your interlocutor did not suggest anything otherwise is at the very least unpleasant discussion style.