Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Its a Good Day to Kill Yourself

Firing ranges are now getting the blame for suicides in some jurisdiction. The Associate Press reports that suicides are problematic events at the nations' firing ranges because their is no requirement for a background check to use range facilities or rent a gun.

In an unrelated report others claim that states with high gun ownership have more suicides.

Again the anti-gun bias looks at the instrument of death not the cause. People who kill themselves are generally clinically depressed. They are mentally ill. They could kill themselves with anything deadly, a car, a hammer, a knife, an overdose of medication etc.

Even a background check will not indicate that someone is depressed!

While I give the AP some credit for a balanced report, you've got to question why this kind of report even makes it to the national news. The statistics on death by firing range are obscure and the probability of such events are rare, yet it spices up a slow news day.

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