New Study: 86% of all gun deaths in the US in 2020 were by suicide

Why are suicide in red states so much higher than suicide rates in blue states?
I'd make the argument that the issue is cultural and has little to do with gun ownership.

Men in red states are more individualistic. The culture is a culture of self reliance and stoicism...asking for help is not in the nature of many rural men and they tend to internalize failures.

In many ways these are excellent traits IMO...but they can easily lead to dark places, like extreme depression...especially in conjunction with self medication coping tactics like drugs and alcohol.
 
I'd make the argument that the issue is cultural and has little to do with gun ownership.

Men in red states are more individualistic. The culture is a culture of self reliance and stoicism...asking for help is not in the nature of many rural men and they tend to internalize failures.

In many ways these are excellent traits IMO...but they can easily lead to dark places, like extreme depression...especially in conjunction with self medication coping tactics like drugs and alcohol.
Seems possible.
 
So I ran some numbers. I looked at the 50 states and compared gun ownership percentages to suicide rates.

There’s a correlation coefficient of 0.82 which would indicate a strong correlation between gun ownership and suicide rates. Higher gun ownership correlates with higher suicide rates.

This would explain why red states have higher suicide rates than blue states.


 

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