Interesting finding! It is natural for NYC to adopt a stricter gun law given the high population density. But that policy feedback nicely to a low suicide rate. This is an example how cause and effect have positive interaction
From the health department comes news that the city’s suicide rate is about half the national average — about 6 deaths per 100,000 people here, compared with 11 in the rest of the country.
The health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, attributes much of the difference to the city’s relatively strict gun laws: he noted that firearms were the chosen method in only 12 percent of suicides in New York in 2010, compared with 51 percent nationwide in 2009. In the three states with the nation’s highest suicide rates — Montana, Alaska and Wyoming — nearly two-thirds of suicides were by firearm.
