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comment by b_b

    If anybody wanted to be intellectually rigorous about reducing gun deaths, they would start with suicide. The number of people who kill themselves with guns is an order of magnitude bigger than all other gun deaths in the USA.

Sure, but the other question is whether suicide rates are substrate-independent. There certainly is no correlation between gun ownership and suicide rates. Nor is there any connection between suicide rates and the method of health care delivery (e.g. government vs. private, or for-profit vs. non-profit):

So the question becomes whether fewer people would kill themselves if they lacked access to firearms? It seems unlikely (save for accidental self-killings), although it probably takes more effort to kill oneself by other means.

Edit: Looking over the data quickly, it looks like one of the strongest predictors is how cold the country is. That doesn't appear to hold on a state-by-state basis in the US:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/figures/m6345qsf.gif





goobster  ·  2295 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You have uncovered my devious plan to improve ALL mental healthcare in the US, under the guise of reducing suicide deaths by gun. (Seriously.)

FirebrandRoaring  ·  2296 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Looking over the data quickly, it looks like one of the strongest predictors is how cold the country is.

I just want to point out India, South Korea, China and Sri Lanka being in top 10.

Could it be that those hotter countries at the bottom are also economically weaker and/or have less industry?

b_b  ·  2296 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's very difficult to pull any real trend out of the data, isn't it? For every parameter you can think of, there appears to be a counter example country on the low end of the spectrum, too.

FirebrandRoaring  ·  2296 days ago  ·  link  ·  

True: especially for those of us with no real education in data mining and pattern recognition.