ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 provided good evidence that the availability of firearms, especially handguns, has an impact on the suicide rate by firearms, and possibly on the overall suicide rate. It seems possible, therefore, that restricting the availability of handguns through limitations on purchasing and ownership might also reduce the suicide rate by guns (see Danto, 1979; Sim, 1979). If no more than a few of those who would have used guns for suicide switch to other methods, then states with the strictest gun control laws may have lower overall rates of suicide.
