One thing that’s really been bothering me lately is all this talk that suicide is driven by gun ownership. It doesn’t just bother me because the notion that guns cause suicides is absurd, it bothers me because it’s obviously absurd, even to a casual uninterested observer. Most reasonable people, I’d suspect, would not in the slightest be persuaded that we have to reduce gun ownership levels to reduce suicide. Suicide is primarily a function of depression, and there are many effective ways of carrying out a desire to kill oneself. Citizens of Japan kill themselves at a far far higher rate than Americans without needing guns to do so.
So why are the anti-gun folks pushing this so hard? Are they desperate? Are they stupid? I think the answer to the former is a little, and to the latter, no. I couldn’t figure out why they might be latching on to an argument that’s clearly not going to get any traction in the sphere of public opinion. But thinking about it last night, it occurred to me. It’s likely a ploy to develop a new constituency for gun control.
Most of us have interacted with gun control advocates. The vast majority of the people I’ve come across who have become activists in the issue have been relatives of victims of gun violence. Hell, even The Brady Campaign’s namesake fits that profile. So does Bryan Miller. The gun control movement’s bread and butter is tragedy; it’s what makes anti-gunners, and it’s what keeps their organizations churning.
In the pre-Heller world, various gun control groups were not performing all that well. In the post-Heller world, it’s going to be even harder. If you’re a gun control group, and you need to enlarge your base of core supporters, how can you ignore the largest pool of people who have been affected by tragedy involving the gun? There are far more folks out there who have been affected by suicide of a loved one than have been affected by gun violence, and more importantly, families affected by suicide are often middle class, and have money and time to donate.
But why now? Well, because Heller offers them an opportunity. We can’t really deny that where law abiding people have access to guns, some small fraction of people will choose a firearm to commit suicide over other methods. If the gun bans in Chicago and other major cities are struck down, the gun control movement is virtually guaranteed to be able to point to rising levels of suicide with firearms. This creates new possibilities for them with gun control schemes, possibly including expanded mental health prohibitions, renewed calls for waiting periods, and various other requirements that could be plausibly linked with suicide prevention.
I had said previously the gun control movement will change post-Heller, and this might be an indication their focus is shifting away from crime control, which we’ve shown doesn’t work, to suicide prevention. Regardless of how well the message resonates with the public at large, if it allows a larger constituency for gun control, and more money rolling into the coffers of gun control groups, they’d be foolish not to exploit the opportunity. I think we’re seeing a deliberate shift in rhetoric. Time will tell how it pans out, but we must be ready to counter it.
