Thinking of buying a gun, are you?

It ' s well established that firearm ownership is a risk factor for suicide. In fact it increases the risk by about three times according to the best previous estimate. Actually it is clear that you ' re far more likely to shoot yourself than you ever are to use a firearm in self-defense. But it ' s hard to establish the true magnitude of a risk in the population, especially when there are so many other factors to consider. Previous studies have had limitations that impede confident generalization.Well, researchers have now published a study using a huge prospective cohort, with 12 years of follow-up. That ' s a powerful design. In California, all lawful transfers of firearms must be made through a licensed dealer. This includes gifts and private sales. Obviously some people acquire guns illegally but it ' s presumably a relatively small number and that doesn ' t really affect any conclusions about legal gun transfers. So the researchers had a complete record of every time somebody in California legally acquired a gun. They also had access to the California voter registration database, which enumerates every adult known to be alive in California (presumably not including undocumented people, again largely beside the point) and it shows when people leave the state and move in. And of course they had access to death certificates.They followed more than 26 million people for an average of almost seven years. I won ' t go into the details of the analysis but they accounted for as...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs