In pushing for dramatic new federal action, gun control advocates often mislead the public with the term “gun deaths.” They do so by citing statistics including not only murders committed with firearms, but also including the much greater number of suicides.

Actually, the great majority of more than 30,000 annual gun deaths – nearly two thirds of all those fatalities – occur when people deliberately kill themselves. Counting 19,000 additional  suicides by pills, jumping from bridges, slicing wrists and so forth, the number murdering themselves is nearly five times higher than the number killed in firearms homicides. Yet many of the same liberal true believers who say they want to save lives by curbing gun ownership also endorse assisted suicide – providing unwitting encouragement to a culture of self-slaughter that already claims far too many victims.