>Lest some of you think my earlier post was fraudulent. I would never think such a thing - but decided to look at your material below just to see what's happening.
> >*********************************************************************** >Professor Joseph Olson Hamline University School of Law >tel. (651) 523-2142 St. Paul, Minnesota 55104-1284 >fax. (651) 523-2236 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >>>> FORWARDED MESSAGE <<< >A BRADY LAW FOR ROPE? >http://drkoop.com/template.asp?page=newsdetail&ap=93&id=1504295 > >In the last decade, suffocation -- notably hanging -- has overtaken >firearms as the most common way for adolescents to kill themselves, >the >U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. >>>> END <<< > >Without explanation, the DrKoop.com website censored the original >article and quietly replaced it with one on "Obesity in Pregnancy." That's what I see at the above URL. >Apparently, the MD's at that publication really believe gun owners are >too stupid to find the original CDC document [in a specialized MEDICAL >publication: News release, CDC. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, >June 11, 2004; vol 53: pp 471-474.] Not so, here it is >http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5322a2.htm. There are a couple of very interesting aspects of this announcement. I) The has been a quite steady decline in suicide by firearm in 10-19 year olds over the 1992-2001 decade. I.e. the *rate* (suicides per 100,000 population per year) has gone down. There are many possible causes - including better firearms education, lessened availability of firearms, and also that in the general decline (totally approx 26% over this perios) some styles happened to go out of favor faster than others. II) The mention that suffocation ("mostly hanging") has "overtaken" firearms - is the result not just of a decrease in the firearms rate (approx. 8.8% per year), but also of an absolute increase in the suffocation rate (approx. 5.1% per year.) This raises the possibility of "substitution" - but certainly no conclusions. See the disclaimer in the Editorial note "First, because U.S. mortality data include a limited number of variables, direct testing of whether method substitution is occurring is not possible; however, no sizeable demographic changes in the composition of youth suicide decedents have been documented that might explain the changes in methods" >For corroboration of existence of the earlier DrKoop.com story see: >http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?c=&p=youth%2C+suicide I couldn't find any mention of the earlier DrKoop.com story. (And a Google search didn't help.) But, FWIS, I noticed that at the bottom of the DrKoop.com web page it says, "The drkoop.com URL and web site is not associated with C. Everett Koop, M.D., former Surgeon General of the United States." -- --henry schaffer _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
