Every so often you run across something from the anti-gun “research” folks that just defies all logic. While they usually try to stitch together something from completely disassociated metrics, the implied association of so-called “ghost guns” to an increase in suicide rates is purely laughable fiction. In the gun control world, association does not imply causation has no meaning.
As reported by the gun control mouthpiece The Trace, for every 20 “ghost guns” recovered, the state firearm suicide rate increased by 6%. To be fair, since I first read their story, they updated it to include “The study found that for every 20 ghost guns recovered per 100,000 people, the firearm suicide rate increased by about 6 percent across the state.” Sadly, this doesn’t add any more legitimacy to their story.
One of the most glaring omissions was if the “ghost guns” were the actual firearms being used in the suicides. In the directed result research world of gun control, that’s a gargantuan jump in logic. Are they? No, but this so-called “research” heavily implies it even though it doesn’t reflect any reality on the ground.
According to their numbers, between 2017 & 2021 around 18,500 “ghost guns” were recovered in California. California population in 2021 was roughly 38 million. That would have been an astronomical increase in the statewide suicide rate during that time. You can understand why they updated the story with a new qualifying metric. Keep in mind this study was done only on data from California, the most heavily gun controlled state in the country.
Digging a little deeper into this nonsense, you find this tidbit. “For every 20 ghost guns recovered per 100,000 people, there was an associated 6.4% increase in firearm suicide rates in the following year.” Recovered “ghost guns” in year one and there is an increase in the suicide rate in year two… NOW it makes perfect sense (sarcasm implied).
Among the factors for their case of why “ghost guns” are bad is: “[They] can be acquired without background checks or waiting periods, bypassing the very safeguards designed to create a pause between intent and action”.
But what does this mean in reality? Well, if you are going to buy a “ghost gun”, you’ll have to buy the components from several different companies online since a complete parts and tooling kits are no longer allowed. Once all the various components are shipped, received, and assuming you have the necessary tools and experience to complete a build, you’ve got anywhere from a few hours to a week to build your firearm. Best case you are looking at weeks to completion, longer than even the gun control gold standard California 10 day waiting period. That’s not exactly a spontaneous act – “intent and action” – the waiting periods are meant to protect you from.
Of course, The Trace completely blew past the finding “ghost guns were not significantly associated with temporal changes in overall firearm death rates or firearm homicide rates.” Go figure.
The truth about what is happening is The Trace is trying to frame home manufactured firearms as a new “public health crisis” similar to the way they have tried to frame violence acts while using a firearm as a public health crisis so they can justify unconstitutional emergency executive orders to restrict lawful firearm ownership and use.
Suicide is a complex medical, psychological and societal issue. Countries around the globe struggle with high suicide rates despite having almost zero civilian firearm ownership. As with violent criminal acts, firearms are merely a tool used, and not the cause.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, I urge you to call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or go online for chat at https://988lifeline.org.
Bob
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