{"id":87861,"date":"2022-11-18T11:39:45","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T17:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=87861"},"modified":"2022-11-18T11:39:45","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T17:39:45","slug":"87861","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=87861","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Gun ownership not to blame for rural suicides<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s long been known that the majority of so-called \u201cgun deaths\u201d were suicides, not homicides. They tend to get lumped in there just to make the number look a whole lot scarier.<\/p>\n

Lately, though, anti-gun crusaders aren\u2019t doing that. They\u2019re treating suicide as a separate thing, which is good. Unfortunately, they still seem to think that gun control is the answer.<\/p>\n

Then again, when you have people who claim\u00a0high levels of gun ownership are driving suicides<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

In 2020, the rural gun death rate was 28% higher than the urban rate. Nonmetropolitan counties reported 17.01 deaths per 100,000 residents, compared to a rate of 13.19 in urban America, according to\u00a0CDC reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although urban areas have higher rates of gun homicide, rural places have higher firearm deaths overall because suicides make up about two thirds of gun deaths nationwide, said researcher Michael Siegel of Tufts University School of Medicine. Siegel says it is important to categorize gun deaths into three groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s firearm homicide, there\u2019s firearm suicide, and then there\u2019s unintentional injuries,\u201d Siegel said.<\/p>\n

Siegel said that the high rates of suicide in rural America can be explained in part by the prevalence of gun ownership. While 46% of rural residents say they own guns, only 19% of urban residents say they own guns, according to\u00a0PEW Center<\/a>\u00a0studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we know that guns are the most lethal means for suicide, if a gun is available, a suicide attempt is likely to result in a death,\u201d Siegel said. \u201cWhereas, if there aren\u2019t guns around, other methods that people might use to attempt suicide are not as lethal.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The piece then goes on to advocate for mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases and red flag laws.<\/p>\n

However, both of those measures focus on the tools used, not the causes of suicide. A suicidal person may well shift to another method, and while they might not as lethal, there are methods damn near as deadly.<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s acknowledge that Tufts University is also the facility that\u2019s mentioned alongside 97Percent\u00a0in a recent story we covered<\/a>. It seems there\u2019s an anti-gun bias at the university.<\/p>\n

Moving on, though, it needs to be understood that suicide is the problem, not guns. Firearms have been with us for centuries and have been a viable method for taking one\u2019s life for just as long. Yet suicides have been with us for ages. The first recorded suicide was\u00a0over 4,000 years ago in Persia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet as that link notes, we may not have a good grasp on what drives suicide.<\/p>\n

So when you look at the divide between rural and urban areas with regard to this issue, why are you focusing on guns and not on potential contributing factors?<\/p>\n

For example, the median rural income is\u00a025 percent lower<\/a>\u00a0than the median in urban areas. While some of that difference is eaten up by the higher cost of living in urban areas,\u00a0not all of it is.<\/a>\u00a0We\u2019ve long known that economic factors may trigger suicidal ideations in an individual, so why isn\u2019t that part of the discussion?<\/p>\n

Most likely because that doesn\u2019t fit the narrative. Working to increase jobs in rural areas, which would drive up wages, wouldn\u2019t advance the gun control agenda, whereas out-of-context statistics and so-called experts talking out of their posteriors does.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all there is to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gun ownership not to blame for rural suicides It\u2019s long been known that the majority of so-called \u201cgun deaths\u201d were suicides, not homicides. They tend to get lumped in there just to make the number look a whole lot scarier. Lately, though, anti-gun crusaders aren\u2019t doing that. They\u2019re treating suicide as a separate thing, which … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87862,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87861\/revisions\/87862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}