Effect of firearms legislation on suicide and homicide in Canada from 1981 to 2016

[CSC-Geoff]

Click HERE to Read Just Released Paper

[SuperDeadlyAccountant]

At first I thought, "great, another Fraser Institute study that everyone dismisses due to their right-wing bias".... But then I saw:

Caillin Langmann
Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
ORCID logo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2358-2958

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. None of the authors are members of any organization other than the indicated University appointment at McMaster University Canada, as well as the Professional Organizations: Fellow of the Royal College of Medicine Canada and American Board of Emergency Medicine. There are no competing interests in this group.

And was surprised. The study really puts a hole in the rhetoric.

Like always, the limitations of studies should always be known:

This study has several limitations. Data for suicide could not be disaggregated by age and Province/Territory due to small numbers, Statistics Canada could not release the data under confidentiality regulations, thus regional associations could not be analysed. Another issue is that firearm suicide and homicide are low base-rate events, and therefore changes in response to specific interventions may not have the statistical power necessary to resolve using regression models. Bias may also result from the misclassification of cause of death by coroners. While it is not possible to determine the number of accidental deaths misclassified as suicide or vice versa, the numbers of accidental deaths by firearms and suffocation per age category are in the low single digit ranges in data obtainable from Statistics Canada.

[Juster]

The paper assumes that association is causation. Factors other than legislation are at play. But they aren't actively lying, so they do have the facts.

[A_guy]

... There was no association found with firearm prevalence rates per province and provincial suicide rates, but an increased association with suicide rates was found with rates of low income, increased unemployment

and

In conclusion, firearms legislation had no associated beneficial effect on overall suicide and homicide rates. Prevalence of firearms ownership was not associated with suicide rates.

Bingo

Expect the author and this paper to be shredded starting any moment.

[mdbuckle]

From my own personal experience, people truly suicidal will do what ever it takes with whatever they have. A firearm is irrelevant...

[BCrecce]

^exactly this. I have seen people in this state, gun...bridge...carbon monoxide...pills. if someone wants to go they want to go. Method has no association with cause. Human beings have a right to control their own life or death, we have the legal right to assisted suicide. The only reason any government body would inquire or intervene.....loss of tax revenue.

[msal]

While they may still proceed to attempt suicide, the act still can be reduced by limiting access to firearms.

[Juster]

While they may still proceed to attempt suicide, the act still can be reduced by limiting access to firearms.

I think the point of the study was that this isn't the case, as far as statistics go.

[maifire]

Suicide should be way more legal regardless. Access to guns or not, suicide is near impossible to stop. What we can stop is the horrible ways in which some believe they should do it, or try and screw it up.

[Humblepie]

Suicide should be way more legal regardless. Access to guns or not, suicide is near impossible to stop. What we can stop is the horrible ways in which some believe they should do it, or try and screw it up.

Making it a no big deal event, is likely not the best course of action.

I see where you are coming from...

There are some stats from Bridge jumpers...apparently quite a few instantly regretted jumping...but just managed to survive, and get a second chance.