Quoted: I was in health class today and we were graphing our "risk factors" and in the health book it said that owning or frequintly handling firearms take 10yrs off your life. But on the same page it says not wearing seatbelts only takes 3yrs.
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Statistically, I suppose the argument COULD be made (for high-school age teenagers) that having ready access to a handgun might SLIGHTLY elevate their chances of actually going through with it IF they have suicidal thoughts. After all, given all the bullshit and peer pressure that people experience in high school, some of them DO get depressed.
However, given the extremely low number of kids who committ suicide, and trying to take into account the ones who woudl have done it anyway, and just used something other than a gun, and all the other things to take into account, I'm sure the aggregate probabilistic reduction in expected lifetime would probably be measure in days or hours - and would only really apply to teenagers.
The notion of ANY SIGNIFICANT lowered life expectancy is ridiculous, and shows a sad lack of vetting for text books.