All I know about statistics and suicide is that in the U.S. one is more likely to die by suicide than homicide, and that the chances of being killed by someone else with a handgun are FAR lower than the chances of killing one's self with a handgun.
So, statistically speaking, it seems we are all much safer walking the streets at night rather than at home in our own bedroom with that pistol in the drawer. . . .
Or maybe I just don't understand statistics. . . . Lawrence Helm wrote:
. . . .Of course Thornton's "suicide" has most to do with the reduction of the production of children and the importation of immigrants to make up the short fall so the European elderly can continue their retirement entitlements. A lot that is in his book seems a rehashing of material I've read elsewhere. My own tangent was based more on books I read about Europe (including those by Tony Judt) after World War II than Thornton's reference to actual suicide, that is, I had been thinking about that for some time. Why the West has bifurcated, Western Europe one way and America (or Anglo-America?) another is something I have an ongoing interest in.
