# If all the civilian guns in the USA magically disappeared, would death rates rise or lower? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 13, 2018, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496 "2018-03-13T16:17:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/21 "2018-03-15T17:33:15Z")
Well, IMHO suicide is a basic human right, and altho impulsive suicides are often tragic, true- but this would also make planned suicides more difficult. So, that’s a wash. I’d much rather someone with 2 months of extreme pain to live from cancer to end it with a bullet that driving into oncoming traffic or stepping in front of a train. \*Impulsive \*murder rates would likely decline. _Premeditated_- no significant decrease. Rape, armed robbery, home invasion- would all increase. Especially home invasion. Big strong men with baseball bats could do anything they wanted, with no fear. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/22 "2018-03-15T17:34:38Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > The numbers that would definitely go down: > > Accidental gun shootings. No toddlers would get ahold of their parent’s gun and shoot themselves. > > Mass murders. There would be the occasional mass stabbing, but the body counts would be lower. > > The number of people killed in encounters with the police would drop significantly. If the police were certain that nobody they interact with is carrying a gun, they would be less inclined to kill suspects. True. Umm, you forget bombings, crashing cars or airplanes into things, etc. I dont think so, they have shot a lot of people with knives. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/23 "2018-03-15T17:39:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > They would certainly go down, especially in the short term but probably in the long term as well. Suicide would have a large dip initially, but would probably rebalance after that as people used alternative means. It would still be lower than today, but I could see it going down sharply after the guns magically disappeared and impulse suicides didn’t have the means to act on their impulse declined, then probably back up as people in our culture found a different acceptable alternative( or alternatives). It would never get back to being as high as it is with guns. Successful suicides would go down even further, because few suicide methods have the success rate of guns - particularly if you look at suicide methods that are done in the spur of the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Bert\_Nobbins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@Bert\_Nobbins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bert_Nobbins)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/24 "2018-03-20T18:02:40Z")
> [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > This would only be true if there was any scientific evidence that coal fumes cause people to act in an altered state. Do you have a cite for that assertion? Just to get it straight, in Britain we called it the change from town gas (or coal gas) to natural gas. Town gas had a large proportion of carbon monoxide, which is a deadly poison- one or two breaths and you’re down. Suicide was just too easy. The sudden drop in suicides was noticed and widely commented on at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/25 "2018-03-22T02:27:10Z")
Everybody in this thread is missing something. The OP stated that all guns possessed by American civilians disappear, but didn’t postulate anything preventing people from going out and getting new ones. Gun makers’ businesses would boom as people frantically tried to replace their lost guns. Gun imports would skyrocket. There probably would be some negative overall impact because the loss of all of those guns is a loss of wealth and people would spend money replacing them they would normally have spent on something else. Gun crime and suicides would of course be affected in the short term. Long term? I give it 5 years and things would be back to pretty much as they are now. Just a lot of people are a bit poorer than they were before. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/26 "2018-03-22T15:44:26Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Suicide rates would quite obviously go down. I cannot think of any semi-serious arguments to the contrary. That might be a failure of imagination. Our suicide rate is dead average for OECD countries. I’m sure that we might experience a temporary dip in suicides but determined suicidal people (the kind that shoot themselves) are probably going to kill themselves. Are you seriously proposing that our suicide rate would drop to less than half the OECD average? Probably not, so you would probably acknowledge that there would be a substitution effect as more people poisoned themselves, hanged themselves and jumped off buildings. Perhaps not 100% substitution but I have no reason to believe that our suicide rate would be much lower today in the absence of guns. Do you? > [@](#): > > I am very sure murder rates would fall quite a lot, too, but you’ll get some argument from some folks there. I think you might have a much better argument here. If you cold magically take away all guns even from the criminals, I think it would be very hard to argue that our murder rate would not drop. A lot of the gun murders are committed by gangs and drug dealers. These encounters would be much less deadly if these had to use ball peen hammers and crossbows. But if you only removed guns from the hands of law abiding citizens and left them in the hands of criminals, I don’t think its hard to imagine that the murder rate wouldn’t move very much. > [@](#): > > The point of a gun is to make it easier to kill something. Making it harder to kill something means fewer of them will be killed. To construct an argument where murder rates go up you have to construct an argument that the lack of guns will encourage successful murder more than the lack of them will make it likelier or harder for murders to be committed. You are right of course and if you could remove guns from the hands of criminals, gangsters and drug dealers that easily, I think more people would support that than you think. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/27 "2018-03-22T15:57:02Z")
> [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > in fact, the higher rates of gun ownership closely track the higher rates of gun suicides by state. Yet suicide rates by other means remain roughly similar." Who gives a shit about gun suicide rate. That’s like saying the suicide rate by jumping off of 10 story buildings was higher in states where there are a lot of 10 story buildings. What we care about is the overall suicide rate, isn’t it? The overall suicide rate doesn’t correlate nearly as well with gun ownership. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/28 "2018-03-22T16:00:17Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Rather than compare to a country with a very different culture wrt suicide, you could compare different states: > [http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923) > > That study looks at American states with high gun ownership vs low ownership. It pretty solidly shows a lot less gun suicides in low ownership states with no corresponding rise in non-gun suicides. “gun” suicides are irrelevant if the overall suicide rates do not track “gun” suicides. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/29 "2018-03-22T16:01:38Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > But how?! True. There are no other ways of committing suicide besides shooting yourself.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/30 "2018-03-22T16:02:48Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > The numbers that would definitely go down: > > Accidental gun shootings. No toddlers would get ahold of their parent’s gun and shoot themselves. > > Mass murders. There would be the occasional mass stabbing, but the body counts would be lower. > > The number of people killed in encounters with the police would drop significantly. If the police were certain that nobody they interact with is carrying a gun, they would be less inclined to kill suspects. Agree with all but the word significantly in the last one. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/31 "2018-03-22T16:09:24Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > “gun” suicides are irrelevant if the overall suicide rates do not track “gun” suicides. What? ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/32 "2018-03-22T16:11:48Z")
They would definitely and dramatically go down in urban areas like Chicago. It’s hard to wage ongoing gang wars in which several people are murdered at a time in drive by knifings. Rural areas are another matter, though. Those folks generally don’t drive up and down the streets in gangs whacking each other on a daily basis in the first place, so removing their guns wouldn’t have any real noticeable effect. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/33 "2018-03-22T16:36:09Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Who gives a shit about gun suicide rate. I do. I give a shit about all suicides. So despite promising myself I’d stay out of the gun threads, here I am again like an idiot. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The overall suicide rate doesn’t correlate nearly as well with gun ownership. Really? Do you have a cite for that, because I have two that disagree with that statement. Guns and suicide: A fatal link > [@](#): > > A study by the Harvard School of Public Health of all 50 U.S. states reveals a powerful link between rates of firearm ownership and suicides. Based on a survey of American households conducted in 2002, HSPH Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management Matthew Miller, Research Associate Deborah Azrael, and colleagues at the School’s Injury Control Research Center (ICRC), found that in states where guns were prevalent—as in Wyoming, where 63 percent of households reported owning guns—rates of suicide were higher. The inverse was also true: where gun ownership was less common, suicide rates were also lower. [Firearm Ownership and Suicide Rates Among US Men and Women, 1981–2013](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4984734/) > [@](#): > > Results. State-level firearm ownership was associated with an increase in both male and female firearm-related suicide rates and with a decrease in nonfirearm-related suicide rates. Higher gun ownership was associated with higher suicide rates by any means among male, but not among female, persons. Those cites seems to establish a good correlation to me. I also find the part from the second cite about the gender differences interesting, and am curious if anyone else has some thoughts on that subject. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/34 "2018-03-22T16:44:38Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > True. > > Umm, you forget bombings, crashing cars or airplanes into things, etc. > > I dont think so, they have shot a lot of people with knives. Yeah we can’t forget the 2,996 people that were killed on 9 11 . ☹ ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/35 "2018-03-22T18:13:29Z")
> [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > I do. I give a shit about all suicides. So despite promising myself I’d stay out of the gun threads, here I am again like an idiot. > > Really? Do you have a cite for that, because I have two that disagree with that statement. > > Guns and suicide: A fatal link > > [Firearm Ownership and Suicide Rates Among US Men and Women, 1981–2013](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4984734/) > > Those cites seems to establish a good correlation to me. I also find the part from the second cite about the gender differences interesting, and am curious if anyone else has some thoughts on that subject. Based on that Japan should have a nearly zero suicide rate instead of one significantly higher that the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/36 "2018-03-22T19:03:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Based on that Japan should have a nearly zero suicide rate instead of one significantly higher that the USA. Only if you are foolish enough to believe that the **only** thing that affects the suicide rate is firearm ownership. However, I am confused about something. I specifically restricted myself to American cites, because as you said in a different gun thread … > [@Would murder and/or death rates rise, or lower, if the 2nd Amendment was abolished?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-murder-and-or-death-rates-rise-or-lower-if-the-2nd-amendment-was-abolished/810491/22): > > Becuase the rest of the world isnt the USA. So why are you now bringing up Japan to mock my cites from two American research institutions? According to your own statements, which I am happy to cite on request, you can’t compare gun control from another country to America. So WTF does Japan have to do with anything here? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/37 "2018-03-22T21:07:23Z")
> [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > Only if you are foolish enough to believe that the **only** thing that affects the suicide rate is firearm ownership. > > However, I am confused about something. I specifically restricted myself to American cites, because as you said in a different gun thread … > > So why are you now bringing up Japan to mock my cites from two American research institutions? According to your own statements, which I am happy to cite on request, you can’t compare gun control from another country to America. So WTF does Japan have to do with anything here? I am turning your own arguments on you. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/38 "2018-03-22T21:33:33Z")
Is that what you call that? Well, in your own words … > [@Would murder and/or death rates rise, or lower, if the 2nd Amendment was abolished?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-murder-and-or-death-rates-rise-or-lower-if-the-2nd-amendment-was-abolished/810491/87): > > Yeah, that was weak, shows they got nuthin better. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/39 "2018-03-22T21:46:32Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > True. There are no other ways of committing suicide besides shooting yourself.:rolleyes: It was meant to be a joke, responding to another joke. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496/40 "2018-03-22T23:18:41Z")
> [@Ponderoid](#): > > Everybody in this thread is missing something. The OP stated that all guns possessed by American civilians disappear, but didn’t postulate anything preventing people from going out and getting new ones. Gun makers’ businesses would boom as people frantically tried to replace their lost guns. Gun imports would skyrocket. There probably would be some negative overall impact because the loss of all of those guns is a loss of wealth and people would spend money replacing them they would normally have spent on something else. > > Gun crime and suicides would of course be affected in the short term. Long term? I give it 5 years and things would be back to pretty much as they are now. Just a lot of people are a bit poorer than they were before. Gun sellers in America are generally civilians, so all their stock would disappear too, including all unshipped stock at american factories and distributors. (And stuff in transit too, for that matter.) It would take a little while to re-arm america, even if no moves (political or otherwise) are made to prevent that from occurring. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-all-the-civilian-guns-in-the-usa-magically-disappeared-would-death-rates-rise-or-lower/810496.md?page=3)