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Comment by RobotCaleb | Hacker News Reader

Without comparing that to other causes of death it's a pretty useless page to look at.

It informed me that there are 1621 people dead since Newtown. That's useful to know in as much that there are continued gun-related deaths in the US.

Now, we can relate those to per-capita deaths in order countries and compare, like-to-like.

Can you clarify why it's useless to look at unless we include ostensibly unrelated statistics?

The parent post said "comparing that to other causes of death" not "comparing gun deaths in other countries." Generally speaking, the point is this: more people die of several other things that could just as easily be banned and save more lives than banning guns.

I'm aware of the point. I think it's more than a bit disingenuous.

Let's take heart disease, for example. Can someone walk up to a healthy person and instantaneously give them heart disease?

Method and execution counts. A gun is a man-portable device that allows someone to project lethal force at a distance. Looking at other causes of death that use similar methods is reasonable and good.

Until someone can teleport arterial plaque into your veins at a distance without your consent, I don't find the "all other causes of death" argument to be persuasive.

Drunk drivers drive up to healthy people and instantaneously give them death and disfigurement... all day, every day. Often times in multiples.

Do you really believe that if all guns disappeared tomorow, those who want to kill themselves would not find another way?

Because thats what most "gun related deaths" are-- suicides.

But it pads the statistics to make people who aren't paying close attention more fearful to talk about "gun related deaths" than "murders with guns", and it also helps avoid the fact that the murder rate in countries where guns have been banned is much higher-- even if they have to use knives to do it. (how often have you seen the murder rate in Britain brought up vs. the number of "gun related deaths" brought up there in this debate?)

''Do you really believe that if all guns disappeared tomorow, those who want to kill themselves would not find another way?''

Strawman. "Banning all the guns" was never mentioned or advocated. Please rephrase.

> Do you really believe that if all guns disappeared tomorow, those who want to kill themselves would not find another way?

Yes, most people who would complete suicide by gun would not do so without a gun.

They would use trains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan#Suicide

No. Small changes to availability of a method of suicide can have big affects.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21370910)

That one study only tells us that smaller paracetamol package size may have resulted in fewer paracetamol OD suicides. It says nothing about the impact it had on other methods of suicide. Or how the decline of that specific method of suicide compared to the number of suicides by other methods. If other methods of suicide also declined during that same period, one could reasonably conclude that suicide was on the decline anyway and would have declined even without changing paracetamol package size (perhaps because the economy improved or unemployment declined or any number of things that can lead more people to depression and suicide). However, if other methods of suicide increased during that same period, one could reasonably conclude that people simply found another suicide method "easier" than paracetamol OD. I don't know either way... but that article certainly leaves a lot of other factors unchecked.

The Oxford studies are pretty clear that people tend to chose one method, and a small delay in that method prevents them from completing suicide.

People tend not to use anything available to kill themselves. Most houses have many things which could cause certain death, but people tend to stick to a certain method.

I absolutely agree that suicides would decline for a period of time, since guns are the first thought for most men considering suicide. However, once it is no longer the primary way of suicide, something else would replace it. In Japan, the first thought for most men is not a gun, but a train.

There is no context to that number. Is 1621 gun deaths a lot, a little, are there seasonal effects, etc. It's not an entirely useless number, but it does little to clarify what the broader trends of gun violence are.

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