# The democrats abandoning gun control will not help them win the votes of rural whites **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 13, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504 "2019-02-13T22:40:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/101 "2019-02-26T04:13:55Z")
> [@Littleman](#): > > " > States, regions, and countries with higher rates of household gun ownership have higher rates of gun suicide. . Yes, and States, regions, and countries with more bridges have higher rates of _bridge jumping s_uicide. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/102 "2019-02-26T04:32:54Z")
> [@Littleman](#): > > What I will give you is a wait period, though unconstitutional, actually made sense. > > Studies do show many people purchase a gun for the purpose of suicide and that they are more likely to carry it out if done immediately. waiting periods are perfectly legal. And, I am not opposed if they arent too long. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/103 "2019-02-26T07:08:18Z")
Since it’s obvious that you don’t know the meaning of correlation, I’ll not even bother with that. If you want to change my mind, bring some actual data to the table. > [@Littleman](#): > > National Research Counsel says what we’ve been telling you almost word for word. > " > States, regions, and countries with higher rates of household gun ownership have higher rates of gun suicide. **There is also cross-sectional, ecological association between gun ownership and overall risk of suicide, but this association is more modest** than the association between gun ownership and gun suicide; it is less consistently observed across time, place, and persons; and the causal relation remains unclear." > But if you claim to be a better analyst than all of theirs, you’ve got a big hill to climb to prove that. I guess you’re having a hard time reading your own cites. I’ve bolded the money shot. That report (it’s actually a big-assed book titled “Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review”) doesn’t claim that there is no relationship, it simply claims that the relationship is more modest than the one between gun ownership and gun suicide. Just because we ain’t fucking doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a date. It has also been shown to be lacking in the years since it came out, but there’s really no use in posting any of those studies as you’ve shown no desire to actually take the time to understand them anyway. That the causal nature of the relationship isn’t proven isn’t news to anyone who can actually participate in this discussion. For all I know, people with micro-weiners might be depressed and purchase guns to make them feel better (purely a hypothetical), but their depression wins out and they end up committing suicide. Could be that owning guns is expensive, causing money issues and increasing rates of suicide. Maybe some gun owners are too afraid to leave their houses and shoot themselves out of boredom. Don’t know, don’t really care for the purposes of this discussion. The correlation is there, whether we have causal answers or not. My favorite part of this whole thing is that the vast majority of the published papers that were analyzed to create that report use the GSS as the source of gun ownership rates. Want to guess how many people are surveyed for that report?[sup]\*[/sup] I’ll give you a hint: it’s far less than 4,000. [sup]\*[/sup]The largest number of participants was in their 2016 survey and it totaled 2,867. Hell, that’s less than 60 per state. ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/104 "2019-02-26T12:09:07Z")
There you go again, popping your own differently defined words in there in an attempt to mislead. Causal relation, not causal nature. A mild cross sectional correlation that is not consistent when you you look at different times , places, or people Hardly more guns mean more suicides , that s a , " we don’t know because the data doesn’t support it. They also tell you that the number of people who seem to purchase a gun for the purpose of suicide is high enough to skew the numbers so far , which is why you can’t establish a causal relationship. So yours and anyone else’s claim of more guns means more suicide is wrong, more guns mean more gun suicides…that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/105 "2019-02-26T12:13:20Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > waiting periods are perfectly legal. And, I am not opposed if they arent too long. Maybe only some states deemed them unconstitutional, idk I just recall Ohio having to do away with background checks because they caused a wait time …until NICS was made instantaneous ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/106 "2019-02-26T12:32:41Z")
And let’s clear up the meaning of your “moneyshot”. A mild cross sectional correlation which is not consistently observed over time, people., Or location means only in certain instances if you combine just the right data points you can make a mild correlation. Squint your eyes and tilt your head and look at it just right and sometimes it looks like it’s there but it can’t be causal because there are too many conflicting data points. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/107 "2019-03-01T05:51:34Z")
> [@Littleman](#): > > A mild cross sectional correlation that is not consistent when you you look at different times , places, or people I have pulled data from various years to match up as closely as possible to whichever gun ownership data you keep tossing at the wall. I also have not filtered the data in any way, and have included all 50 states in all of my postings. Hell, if you provide some per capita gun ownership data that has multiple years, I’ll even set up a viz with the year in the drop down so that you can play with it yourself. You very clearly stated… > [@Littleman](#): > > There is no consistent correlation between suicide rate and gun ownership. I have simply proven that false (over and over again), no matter which data I’ve used (and I’ve used data that you provided) and no matter which time frame it represents. I can’t find a single year or source of data for which there is no correlation in the US. Holy fuck, I just realized that you’re [wall boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=869617&p=21457649), so this is a complete waste of time. I’m going to nope the fuck out of here before I waste any more time. Ciao! ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/108 "2019-03-01T12:40:07Z")
> **[Correlation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence)** > > In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics it usually refers to the degree to which a pair of variables are linearly related. > Familiar examples of dependent phenomena include the correlation between the height of parents and their offspring, and the correlation between the price of a good and the... **Littleman** seems unclear on what correlation means. This is high school math here. Barely – some of you probably covered this in middle school. ---
**Author:** ![bubba001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@bubba001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba001)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/109 "2019-03-01T15:44:52Z")
I’m new here, but it seems to me the OP was about a change in the voting for blue collar whites. Now it’s all about stats and suicides? ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/110 "2019-03-01T16:16:10Z")
> [@bubba001](#): > > I agree. If abortion was not an issue, it would move part of the electorate. It would deprive the republicans of a important issue with evangelicals, and Catholics. But a lot of folks in my rural area were republicans long before abortion became a issue. I agree as well. If abortion was off the table, a lot more republicans would vote democrat. However, would that make up for the depressed democrat vote? Probably not. I mean, democrats have no real place to go, the just wouldn’t vote. Its a fantasy land kind of thinking anyway. ---
**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:** [October 4, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/111 "2019-10-04T16:14:49Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > I’ll let him speak for himself, but if that is indeed what he’s saying, he’s going to need to bring some proof. The USA has more guns than people. If guns drove suicides, you would expect to see relatively high suicide rates in America but our suicide rates are not particularly high compared to other industrialized countries. In fact they are about average. Access to guns does not seem to make suicides more common. However the method of suicide in America is HIGHLY affected by access to guns. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/112 "2019-10-04T16:21:54Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Access to guns does not seem to make suicides more common. However the method of suicide in America is HIGHLY affected by access to guns. There is evidence that if people are forced to delay their suicide, that they often re-think or decide not to commit suicide - and that if they have an instant means of committing suicide that is virtually guaranteed to be fatal - i.e., gunshot to the head - that in a particularly heated moment of anguish they can snap and have a means of suicide that can get the deed done in seconds. So having less access to guns can force them to spend several more minutes planning or devising a way to off themselves, which can be enough time for a change of mind. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/113 "2019-10-04T16:23:45Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > There is evidence that if people are forced to delay their suicide, that they often re-think or decide not to commit suicide - and that if they have an instant means of committing suicide that is virtually guaranteed to be fatal - i.e., gunshot to the head - that in a particularly heated moment of anguish they can snap and have a means of suicide that can get the deed done in seconds. So having less access to guns can force them to spend several more minutes planning or devising a way to off themselves, which can be enough time for a change of mind. I would wonder then why the US is in the middle of the pack, wrt suicides, while countries that have limited or fully restricted access to guns and thus more time to think and, presumably less lethal means to enact their suicides have higher rates than us. It’s kind of a puzzle, no? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/114 "2019-10-04T16:48:39Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > There is evidence that if people are forced to delay their suicide, that they often re-think or decide not to commit suicide - and that if they have an instant means of committing suicide that is virtually guaranteed to be fatal - i.e., gunshot to the head - that in a particularly heated moment of anguish they can snap and have a means of suicide that can get the deed done in seconds. So having less access to guns can force them to spend several more minutes planning or devising a way to off themselves, which can be enough time for a change of mind. Sure, no doubt that happens once in a while. But it is not statistically significant. Japan has NO guns but has a much higher suicide rate than the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Fentoine\_Lum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b77776/32.png) [@Fentoine\_Lum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fentoine_Lum)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/115 "2019-10-07T19:06:29Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > I’m tired of folks bringing up Chicago. They are so close to Indiana with lax gun laws that the Chicago laws aren’t even a factor. We don’t know if gun controls laws would work. We only know that localized ones don’t. In many instances “Chicago” is code for “them darkies”. ---
**Author:** ![Fentoine\_Lum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b77776/32.png) [@Fentoine\_Lum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fentoine_Lum)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/116 "2019-10-07T19:10:30Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Sure, no doubt that happens once in a while. But it is not statistically significant. > > Japan has NO guns but has a much higher suicide rate than the USA. So #30 (Japan) versus #34 (the US)? > **[List of countries by suicide rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate)** > > The following are lists of countries by estimated suicide rates as published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other sources.\[note 1\] > In many countries, suicide rates are underreported due to social stigma, cultural or legal concerns. Thus, these figures cannot be used to compare real suicide rates, which are unknown in most countries. > As of 2016, there was an estimated global suicide rate of 10.5 per 100,000 population down from 11.6 in 2008. In high-income modernized countries mal... ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504/117 "2019-10-07T19:29:31Z")
> [@Fentoine\_Lum](#): > > So #30 (Japan) versus #34 (the US)? > > [List of countries by suicide rate - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate) No, 14 verse 27. From [here](http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/suicide-rate-by-country/). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-democrats-abandoning-gun-control-will-not-help-them-win-the-votes-of-rural-whites/829504.md?page=5)