7/27/2007

Movement to end tradition of keeping military weapons in homes in Switzerland shows strong support

posted by John Lott at 12:25 AM

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi john,
Thanks for the link to that.

It is interesting to see the suicide red herring appearing again, and in a debate about a poll which did not give its' estimated error.

Naturally the article does not mention the suicide rate among the Japanese where firearms availability to non criminals is virtually zero...

Figures for Japan, Year 1999, source: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en

Male 36.5
female 14.1 per 100,000

OK perhaps Japan with a tradition of ritual suicide is a hard comparison, let's try another highly developed and wealth country, but with European culture:
Finland year 2000:
Male: 34.6
Female: 10.9

pretty high compared to Switzerland's '99 figure of
Male: 26.5
Female: 10.0

oh, yes there's Austria, next door but without military arms at home: 2001:
Male 27.3
Female 9.8
And the other neighbours (male figures only)

France 1999: 26.1
Germany 1999: 20.2
Italy 1999: 11.1

Only one of those was below the WHO average, and none of those countries have military guns at home, or as high a firearms ownership rate.

The really high suicide rates occur in the former soviet states and satellites
e.g. Lithuania; 2000; male suicide rate of 75.6 per 100,000.

There is also the big question of how suicides are counted, and where the line is drawn in confusing cases, eg drug overdose, car and bike crashes etc.

Keith













Then we get the really high ones, male figures only;
Belarus: 2000: 63.6
Estonia: 2000: 45.8
Khazakstan: 1999: 46.4
Latvia: 2000: 56.6
Lithuania: 2000: 75.6
Russian Federation: 2000: 70.6

7/27/2007 11:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Then, let's wait until they ban the military weapons in the home, then immediately invade.

7/27/2007 11:46 AM  

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