Reply #46: The U.S. suicide rate is *lower* than that of a lot of European countries with laws you like. [View All]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

And according to that page, the overall U.S. rate is lower than the overall Canada rate, though the difference is so small as to probably be statistically insignificant. Data is from the World Health Organization, if I read it correctly.

And this is despite the fact that Americans have lousy access to mental health care, and work the longest hours with the least time off of any First World nation, including Japan.

Americans tend to use different methods than in Europe, but the overall rate here is quite comparable to Europe's.

Added on edit: Here's a map of suicide rates worldwide. There isn't much variance by gun availability, but there is a *lot* of variance by culture and socioeconomic conditions.



The key correlating colors with per-capita rates is here. Light yellow is lowest, red is highest.