People it should be obvious by now that facts are slippery things when you coat them with cascadian bacon grease then try handling them while in a fairly unbalanced state.

I really don't understand why the pro-gun crowd feel so threatened by this study, sure its interesting statistically but hardly surprising.

Besides the question to ask about studies like this is not, omg how does this threaten me? It should be something more like, can this information aid in mapping suicide clusters?

@111: Shout it from the rooftops, brother! A healthy population of arrogant, dissembling fucks such as yourself ("most of you" are like that) are the single best guarantor of gun rights in the known universe.

It can be hard to get people motivated to vote and act, but holy shit, you (and Barry, and Nancy, and Crazy Uncle Joe, and Mikey Bloomberg) basically just do the job for free. You fucktards have put more guns in circulation, and more gun-rights-friendly politicians in office, than any lobbying or interest group could in a hundred years.

Please donate to the latest gun-owner-harassment project (http://wagunresponsibility.org) and let's get that sumbitch on the ballot ASAP, and then see who turns up to vote.

@112

That's their thing: they feel threatened by everything. They are a superstitious cowardly lot, and anything will strike terror into their hearts.

Hilarious how only one of 114 comments references one of the four researchers responsible for the titular assertion, and that is from the SLOG poster himself. I have a preconceived notion that people disputing this assertion aren't interested reading what they can of primary and secondary documents to refute or find fault with the methodologies of analyzing survey data, but prefer tangential points and endless bickering.

I see in one page attempting, with map overlay diagrams, to correlate the top states in gun ownership with top states of suicide by gun, that Oregon is in the latter top ten but not the former. Would that have anything to do with Oregon being the first state to legalize euthanasia, in 1994?

I also see Utah in the latter category: would that have anything to do with a related HSPH abstract claiming people who drink 2-4 cups of coffee are less likely to commit suicide? Not a lot of coffee drinkers in Utah... or maybe the noncoastal "western" states have higher suicide rates because of: isolation from community, no oceans to go listen to or visit to calm the feverishly distraught mind, low population, lack of interest in funding mental health care...

I like smokers better than gunners cause when you say to a smoker "you know you're gonna kill yourself with those things" they put on their sunglasses and go like "YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH" all CSI Miami but when you say the same thing to gunmen they go "um no I am a invincible Batman look at all these NUMBERS", so fuck those guys