JFC man you're still going....I was going to kick you in the balls over this but I refrained last night in hopes that you'd let it go but it seems not....
So let's go with your theory that 'Restricting access to firearms would reduce the suicide rate'. It stands to reason that those countries with fewer firearms per capita should have measurably lower suicide rates than the US right?
So lets take a look.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_suicide_rate
Who's #1....wait it's not the US....it's South Korea at 31.7 per 100K...wait isn't firearms effectively Verboten in Korea? How can they commit so many suicides?
Look who's #6 PRC at 22.23...but wait aren't guns forbidden there too? Maybe it's just a statistical anomaly due to low population numbers artificially inflating the rate.
How about #7 Japan at 21.9...hmmm it's really hard to get a gun there...
Damn 3 SE Asian countries in the top 7 there's not a cultural correlation is there?
But let's look somewhere closer to our western home
The French at #24 with a 15.0 rate....but isn't it a PITA to get a gun there?(but hey it's France...if I were French I might be tempted to kill myself too!)
Where's the US with bar far the most guns per capita in the world?
We're #34 at a rate of 12.0
Wait who's right behind us at #38???
The UK with a rate of 11.8..but wait aren't they the poster children for gun control since their firearm murder rate is so low???
But lets go even closer to home...
#39 our neighbors to the north....Canada at 11.3 where it is not easy at all to get a gun.
So why even with countries that are very difficult to get guns does the suicide rate not go down? Because often people will substitute one method for another.
People like to talk about how effective firearms are at committing suicide, sorry they are weak. Know what the number one single suicide device in the world is? The Golden Gate Bridge most suicides in the world and about a 98% effectiveness rating. Because if the fall doesn't kill you, you're going to drown trying to swim in the ice cold water below.
So should we now ban access to bridges because they are such lethal killing machines?????