Gun Availability and Use of Guns for Suicide, Homicide, and Murder in Canada

Abstract

A reliability check of Lester's (2000b) 1970-1995 time series that examined associations between the availability of firearms and their use for homicide and suicide in Canada. For the period 1974 to 1999, the relative availability of firearms as measured by the rate of accidental death from firearms and the average of the percentages of suicides + homicides using firearms was positively associated with the rate of homicide by firearms but not negatively associated with the rate of homicide by all other methods, and positively associated with the rate of suicide by firearms and negatively associated with the rate of suicide by all other methods. Correlations for the homicide versus murder rates, homicide rate using guns versus murder rate using guns, and homicide rate by all other methods versus murder rate by all other methods were very similar. There was a decrease over time of total suicide and homicide rates and firearm suicide and homicide rates, and with a slight indication of substitution of other methods for suicide.

Suicide prevention through means restriction: Assessing the risk of substitution

“…Among these, means, restriction has been drawing more and more attention, as evidenced by the fact that nine of the presentations at the 2003 congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention referred to this measure, compared with none at the 1988 congress. The effectiveness of restricting access to certain means has been demonstrated (Leenaars et al, 2000), at least as regards toxic domestic gas (Kreitman, 1976), firearms (Bridges and Kunselman, 2004;Conwell et al, 2002;Hemenway and Miller, 2002), drugs (Hawton et al, 2001;Wilkinson et al, 2002) and bridges (Beautrais, 2001;Berman et al, 1994). However, there remains the question of substitution or displacement, that is, the possibility that suicidal individuals, once deprived of their preferred means of committing suicide, shift their consideration towards alternative methods.…”

Gun control and suicide: The impact of state firearm regulations in the United States, 1995–2004

“…The most commonly used proxies for gun ownership are the proportion of homicides and the proportion of suicides committed with firearms (e.g. [36][37][38][39][40][41][42]). These variables are combined to create a measure called Cook's index.…”

Suicide by shooting is correlated to rate of gun licenses in Austrian counties

“…Furthermore, restricting access to lethal methods has been identiSuicide by shooting is correlated to rate of gun licenses in Austrian counties Elmar Etzersdorfer 1 , Nestor D. Kapusta 2 , and Gernot Sonneck 2 fied as one of two evidence-based targets for suicide prevention [7]. Strict gun control laws have been found to correlate with decreases in shooting in several countries, such as the USA [8,9], Canada [10][11][12][13] and Australia [14,15]. In Australia there were dramatic reductions in firearm-related suicides after each of two periods of strong regulatory reforms [16].…”