Con

Gun control laws and lower gun ownership rates do not prevent suicides.

Lithuania has one of the world’s lowest gun ownership rates (0.7 guns per 100 people) but its suicide rate (by any method) was 45.06 per 100,000 people in 1999, the highest suicide rate among 71 countries with available information. [44] Japan has a low gun ownership rate at 0.6 guns per 100 people and a high suicide rate of 18.41 suicides per 100,000 people in 1997 (ranking it 11 out of 71 countries). [44][45] South Korea has a low gun ownership rate (1.1 guns per 100 people) but has a high rate of suicide and the highest rate of gun suicides (12.63 per 100,000 people in 1997). [44][45] By contrast the United States has the 26th highest suicide rate (12.3 suicides per 100,000 people in 2011) and the highest gun ownership rate (88.8 guns per 100 people). [44][45] Jim Barrett, author for TheTruthAboutGuns.com, stated, “the theory that the restriction or elimination of guns would have a positive effect on the overall suicide rate in the U.S. does not hold up under scrutiny.” [81]

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