There are thousands of ways you can kill yourself, yet Bloomberg.com is not going to publish an article about how depressed people should get rid of sleeping pills, knives, and hairdryers you can throw in the bathtub. Instead, Megan McArdle writes.

“I’m a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. I support the right of everyone except violent felons to have guns in their homes, carry them around in their cars, or wear them on their hips if they’re so inclined. But over the years, I’ve started to think that there are people who probably shouldn’t buy guns. I don’t mean “shouldn’t be allowed to”; I just mean “should exercise their Second Amendment right not to have a gun in their home.”

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/depressed-put-the-guns-away-.html

 

Sure you are, Megan, and I’m sure Bloomberg.com loves publishing columns from pro-gun people. Oh wait a minute, they don’t.

Using a variety of techniques and data we estimate that a 1% increase in gun ownership leads to a .5 to .9% increase in suicides.

Interesting, in Japan they’ve had a 0% increase in legal gun ownership yet their suicide rate is among the highest in the world. I wonder if Japan is fighting this with Katana Control?

What we find, however, is that an increase in gun ownership decrease non-gun suicide. From an economics perspective this makes perfect sense. As gun ownership increases, the cost of gun-suicide falls because guns are easier to access and as the cost of gun-suicide falls there is substitution away from non-gun suicide.

So let me get this straight, it’s not easy to cut your wrists or take 50 sleeping pills but it’s easy to buy an expensive gun and blow your brains out, really?

So people who have had major depressive episodes in the past might be well advised to avoid gun ownership or put their guns in the care of a trusted friend. And folks who have recently gone through a horrible life event (job loss, bad breakup or the death of a loved one) would be well advised to get the guns out of the house until they’ve recovered from the blow.

Wow, in other words, just put your guns away because you’re seconds away from blowing your brains out. You’re a big drama queen that can’t wait to die. How ridiculous, it’s a tiny minority of people that commit suicide, and as the author admitted, “someone who is very determined to commit suicide is probably going to find a way.”

I don’t think this constitutes an argument for stronger gun control; automobiles are a pretty good way to kill yourself if driven into a wall at very high speed, but we do not control access to them because a very small fraction of owners might use them that way. And if you live in a very dangerous area, then I suppose you’ll have to judge the trade-offs. But responsible gun ownership means taking care that your guns are not used to harm innocent people. And if you know that your emotional history puts you at risk of taking your own life, then you should start by protecting yourself.

So why control access to guns then? And what does suicide have to do with harming innocent people? Suicide is a victimless crime, after all, there’s no victim in self-murder. Look Megan, I know my “emotional history” as you put it, and I promise you that if I ever decide to murder myself, it won’t be with a gun. I’ll probably fly to Switzerland where you can get state-of-the art euthanasia.

By the way, NORMAL PEOPLE don’t commit suicide when something horrible happens. Horrible things happen every day, when Obama got elected and reelected, I experienced a few suicidal thoughts and some depression, but I pulled myself up and decided to live.