{"id":236,"date":"2019-12-14T19:50:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T19:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/?p=236"},"modified":"2019-12-14T21:42:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T21:42:12","slug":"firearms-and-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/post-1-spring-2019\/firearms-and-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"Firearms and Suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A.Whalen   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, resulting in around 44,000 deaths every year. Although guns are not the most common way to attempt suicide, attempts involving guns result in the most fatalities. This 2008 table demonstrates that when comparing states with the highest and lowest rates of gun ownership, the suicide rate nearly doubles. In order to reduce fatal suicide attempts, we need to reduce the number of guns available to civilians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"305\" height=\"202\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-238\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image-3.png 305w, https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image-3-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 305px) 100vw, 305px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To collect these data, the study pulled firearm ownership data from a nationwide telephone survey, controlling for factors including poverty and mental illness, and grouped the data from the 15 states with the highest gun ownership and the 6 states with the lowest, to end up with approximately equal populations. The ratio of mortality rates demonstrate that, for both men and women, there are nearly 2 times as many suicides in states with high rates of gun ownership. To refute this data, you could point to the fact that fewer women commit suicide by firearm than they do any other means. However, this claim distracts from the ratio of mortality rate that shows a 7.9 times increase of cases of firearm suicide in women between types of states. This means that more guns are causing more suicides, even if women more frequently attempt suicide by other means. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To decrease fatal suicide attempts, there are two effective methods. We can create a more open dialogue on mental health and provide increased access to treatment for depression, and we can remove the instruments linked to higher instances of fatal suicides. Further restricting access to guns for the mentally ill could be an immediate and clearly effective solution, as shown by the data. Increased access to guns only increases the number of firearm suicides, and the number of non-firearm suicide essentially remains the same, with a ratio rate of about 1 between types of states. If we decrease access to firearms, we will decrease the number of fatal suicide attempts, increasing the opportunity to help survivors of suicide attempts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">*Miller and Hemenway, Journal of Medicine 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A.Whalen Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, resulting in around 44,000 deaths every year. Although guns are not the most common way to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-guns","category-post-1-spring-2019","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}