Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to be stupid[1]. This is kind of the point of having a free society; the people that do helpful things that you approve of don't need to have their activities protected by law and constitution. It's the people that do things you don't approve of that need those protections.

To test if people are actually free, you study how the unpopular people and unwelcome ideas are handled. If they are restricted "for their own good", then any claim of being "free" are jut marketing.

The solution is better education and more communication (and better healthcare, including a lot more funding/availability for mental health services). Going after guns doesn't address the actual problem.

Oh, and "take some pills"? That really depends. You may survive, but hours of hypoxia from an overdose of respiratory depressants can be incredibly damaging, especially to the brain. If the overdose wasn't strong enough to cause that kind of damage, it may not even be a fatal dose. There is going to be a lot of variation, and "backing out" only apples some of the time.

[1] As someone who strongly supports the right to die, suicide is a complicated subject, and is not "stupid" in some cases. However, for the purposes of this thread, that is really off-topic. The "stupid" subset certainly exists and they would be the people who would benefit form the "backing out" you mention.

This seems like the 'one true way' fallacy. If doing Y is vastly more expensive and harder to pull off and nobody is trying to do Y, then it's not an excuse to avoid doing X which is a vastly cheaper partial solution.

When you include external costs guns are massively subsidized. EX: Homeowners insurance generally does not ask about gun ownership even if it increases risks.

PS: The 18th may have allowed the sale of beer, but that does not mean the government can't discourage use though taxation.

Exactly. When Australia changed their gun laws, the suicide rate went down by 65%.

Yet Japan has one of the highest suicide rates and almost no gun ownership!

Also, prior to enacting gun control, Australia's non-firearm suicide rate doubled (1980-1996) while firearm suicide was cut in half.

Not sure there is any correlation.

You may not be sure, but the researchers that study this subject are sure - http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf

And for the US - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/1...

It's not just me, it's other researchers as well.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia#Measurin...

"The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."[61]"

"The implemented restrictions may not be responsible for the observed reductions in firearms suicide. Data suggest that a change in social and cultural attitudes could have contributed to the shift in method preference.[60]"

I wouldn't assume that it's settled.

The paper I linked to discussed both of those papers and corrects errors made in them.

Care to point it out?

The table I'm looking at says firearm suicides dropped by 50% prior to the gun buyback.

I'd argue the decrease in overall suicides is a general trend happened to coincide with the gun buyback.

Even if you take that to be true (I gather there's plenty of ways to quickly off yourself at any given hardware store), does that make the guns "responsible" for those deaths? Are those deaths "due" to guns? Or are we using our political biases to slant something to meet our agenda, like this article, which shows gun violence isn't really increasing at all.