Letter: Taking away guns won’t lower U.S. suicide rate

Recently, the TCH had an article on gun suicides where they stated in 2014 there were 21,334 suicides attributable to firearm availability. It appears that this article is in preparation for gun confiscation — the thinking being that, in taking away all guns, the U.S. suicide rate will decline, which is absurd as demonstrated below.

The Washington Examiner stated, “Today, prescription drug and heroin overdoses are the leading cause of preventable deaths for Americans, exceeding automobile accidents. In 2014, the CDC reported there were nearly 29,500 opiate-related overdose deaths in the U.S. with approximately two-thirds of those deaths attributable to prescription opioid drugs and one-third attributable to their synthetic cousin, heroin.”

It is not far-fetched to assume that many of the prescription drug overdoses were suicides. It is apparent that removing guns would have little effect while opioid drugs are readily available.

An article in the National Review stated “California Medical — its version of Medicaid — will pay $5,400 for the drugs to make the suicidal terminally ill poor, dead.” So, rather than preventing suicides, California will aid in the killing of poor people.

So is a full-page article knocking guns worth the paper space used?

This story was originally published April 23, 2016 at 8:46 PM with the headline "Letter: Taking away guns won’t lower U.S. suicide rate."