Will Gun Control Prevent Suicides?

Anti-gun advocates cite the prevention of suicide as one of the reasons to further restrict gun ownership or as a reason for totally disarming the population eventually. But is disarmament effective in reducing the suicide rate of any given country?

The country with the highest suicide rate in the world is South Korea, where there are 24.7 suicides per 100,000 people. In 2007, there were estimated 510,000 firearms in civilian hands in South Korea. That number includes rifles and shotguns along with handguns. By 2017, that number had been reduced to just 79,000 firearms, with the number of handguns in civilian hands being just 1,758, the most popular firearm of choice for suicide. Yet, South Korea still has the highest suicide rate in the world.

Hungary ranks second with 21.0 suicides per 100,000 people. Only 22,963 handguns are in the hands of the citizenry and Hungary ranks 74^th out of 178 countries in firearm ownership. Yet it boasts a suicide rate second only to South Korea.

Japan has the third highest rate of suicide with 19.4 per 100,000 committing suicide. Japan has only a reported number of handguns in civilian hands totaling a mere 77. Yet, Japan has the third highest suicide rate in the world.

Japan’s suicide rate is 60% higher than the global average, according to the World Health Organization. In 2014, the year that statistic was compiled, 25,000 Japanese citizens killed themselves, about 70 a day. Among children ages 10-19 in Japan, suicide is the leading cause of death. And while the suicide rate among older adults is declining, the rate among this 10-19 age group seems to be increasing. The greatest number of deaths seems to coincide with the return to school after summer break, with bullying, family issues and stress being the greatest factors.

With the availability of guns obviously not being the greatest contributing factor, the Japanese government has decided to try another approach and is attempting to lower the suicide rate by 30% by 2026. Hiring counselors for school-age youth and creating 24-hour Help Lines to address mental challenges being the goal. Such efforts are overdue, as the suicide rate in Japan among the young is the highest it has been in 30 years.

Belgium has the fourth highest rate of suicides in the world with 18.4 per 100,000 people. Only 5.8% of households in Belgium have a firearm of any kind. Belgium has established the legality of assisted suicide and from 2002-2011 some 5,500 have chosen that option. Close to 1% of all total deaths in Belgium are from euthanasia.

Coming in fifth is Finland with a suicide rate of 16.5 per 100,000 people. Only 13% of households in Finland have guns of any kind and yet it boasts the fifth highest in suicides. Half of all suicides in Finland were committed by people who were under the influence of alcohol or dependent upon the substance, with males being more likely to commit suicide than females.  

A suicide occurs somewhere in the world every 40 seconds with about 800,000 people killing themselves annually. When factoring in all the violent deaths worldwide, including those from wars, suicide accounts for 15% or five times as many violent deaths each year than those occurring in war zones.

Compare that to the United States which has a suicide rate of 10.1 per 100,000. In America, the number of households with one or more guns stands at a whopping 42.0%, much higher that South Korea, Hungary, Japan, Belgium or Finland. In fact, the US has somewhere between 111,300,000 to 114,000,000 handguns in civilian hands. Note, that is millions, not thousands, and some estimates go as high as 350,000,000, enough for every man, woman and child in America to have a gun.

The United States, among the 178 countries studied, is ranked #1 in private gun ownership and yet we are #10 of the top 26 countries in suicide. We have more guns in private ownership than every other country in the world and if you believe the Liberal gun-haters, we should have the highest suicide rate. Guns don’t cause suicides, mental attitudes and the inability to cope with circumstances in life itself causes suicides.

In contrast to it all, Greece has 1,920,000 guns, counting legal and illegal ones, and amazingly it has the lowest suicide rate in the world, coming in at a small 2.9 of 100,000 people. The number of households with one or more firearms in Greece rests at 20.6%. Greece shows that although 1 in 5 homes has firearms in them, suicide is not a naturally occurring result of gun ownership.

As South Korea, Hungary, Japan, Belgium and Finland prove, if guns are not available, people who want to die will find another way. With a cultural stigma attached in many cultures in the world to suicide, it can be assumed that the number of reported suicides might be lower than the actual number, making it a bigger problem than anyone will admit to.

True to form, beginning in 2019, Democrats have already vowed to make gun control a top priority when they regain power in the House come January. It is their pet cause regardless of the facts. If they really cared about public safety, guns would not be the target of their Liberal agenda. Mental illness should be. But then, that would not be a very popular campaign slogan to run on, now would it?

Gun Control Began As A Racist Initiative

I never thought of gun control being a racist policy but considering the history of gun law reform dating all the way back to post slavery America, it seems that it is. Following the Civil War, twenty-one lashes was prescribed to any Negro who presumed to carry a weapon whether he/she was a slave or a freed slave. I am not trying to be politically incorrect here but am using the term of the day.) Gun ownership by Blacks was certainly frowned upon.

The actual gun act that allowed the Nazis in 1938 to restrict access to firearms for “certain undesirable members of the population”, was obtained by our own law-makers and used as a pattern, sometimes quoting it directly, to draft the 1968 Gun Control Act. Do you understand what that means? It means that the gun control agenda in this country was fashioned after Nazi policy. How can our legislators seek to enforce gun control over the American citizens with a straight face?

Even before 1968, Supreme Court Justice Buford stated in Florida in 1941 that the Act of 1893 was “passed for the purpose of disarming Negro laborers.” He added “the statue was NEVER intended to be applied to the White population”, basically making it a racist law. Read that sentence again. It was NEVER intended to be enforced in the ways it is being enforced today upon the majority of the American populace.

Even today, it is often believed that the issuing of gun carry permits is not completely balanced and leans toward the preference of Whites over Blacks as owners of handguns.

Gun control in this country, so it seems, has always been a means by which to keep a certain portion of the population in line and in the upcoming years it will be also be used in the same manner. This time it will be a tool of the anti-gun Obama Administration to keep EVERY law-abiding citizen in a place where we will be easy targets of gun-toting criminals and their likely victims because the means by which to defend ones self will be taken from us.

Gun-free zones have proven themselves to be breeding grounds for gun-related crimes because the criminals will be the only ones to have guns except for the police and we all know where they are when the crimes go down – no where to be seen. These zones are supposed to make the average citizen safer when in fact it only identifies areas for the criminal where they can find easy targets. This is proved time and time again, but politicians still don't get it.

Study after study has proved that where citizen have the opportunity to be armed, gun-related crimes go down. When citizens do not have the means of this form of self-defense, crime rates go up. These studies, some even by the government agency Center for Disease Control, tell a different story than the anti-gun politicians spout and these studies are ignored completely in favor of blindly heading down the dangerous course of gun bans.

When considering the real facts about gun owners, the bias against gun ownership makes no sense. What is the real agenda behind such a misuse of power? Is government merely continuing to follow the course set by racist in the past to restrict gun ownership only to expand it to include all members of the population? It is worthy of consideration.