In the UK, the homicide by firearm rate is approximately one in a million.
Indeed, for men, gun ownership is a stronger predictor for death by firearm suicide than previous suicidal behavior.
King noted that homicides by firearm declined by 60% in Australia after strict gun controls were introduced.
In the three states with the nation's highest suicide rates — Montana, Alaska and Wyoming — nearly two-thirds of suicides were by firearm.
According to the CDC, there were 11,493 firearm homicides in the United States in 2009, and 18,735 suicides by firearm.
When Switzerland cut the size of its armed forces in half between 2003 and 2004, suicide by firearm rates declined significantly for men 18-43.
He also wants to prevent deaths by firearm — not by controlling access to guns but by inventing first-aid drones that can cauterize wounds.
So long as people conflate murders and suicides by firearm with accidental deaths, people who understand the statistics will feel they are being treated as potential murderers or suicides when doctors ask prying questions about firearms ownership.
(Since 1996, when Australia banned rapid-fire rifles, made it more difficult to buy handguns, and launched a national gun-buyback program, the number of gun deaths has fallen sharply, and there have been no mass murders by firearm).
"I was an adolescent when I saw fate take up a gun and shoot us down one by one, death by overdose, by firearm, by knife or by hanging," he sings in "Lead Soldier".
