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Originally Posted by kyp275
Personally I don't really think suicides should be lumped in as firearm deaths. Does gun make it easier to do on an impulse? of course, but you can hardly say that those people would not have killed themselves by other methods then or later, I have a hard time believing that the majority of people commit suicide as a spur-of-the-moment thing, as it's usually something that have been building up for awhile. A gun makes it easier to commit suicide, but I don't think it's fair to contribute the suicide to the gun.
Case in point, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and has extremely strict gun control. Do you think having more guns available in Japan would cause an increase in suicide rate, or would suicide-by-gun simply take the place of other methods?
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Well it is possible that guns make impulse suicide much more easy and successful for people who use guns rather than swallowing a bottle of bills/slitting wrists/ etc.
EDIT: Also what you said about suicides is also applicable to homicides since people can still kill each other with or without guns, but guns simply make it easier.