Biomedical subjects

David Lester

Publications and source records attributed to David Lester.

184 records · Page 11Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

The impact of gun control (Bill C-51) on suicide in Canada.

Suicide is a multiply determined behavior, calling for diverse prevention efforts. Gun control has been proposed as an important component of society's response, and an opportunity for studying the effects of legislative gun control laws on suicide rates was provided by Canada's Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1977 (Bill C-51). This article reviews previous studies of the impact of this act on the total population of Canada and subpopulations by age and gender and, in addition, presents the results of 2 new studies: a different method of analysis, an interrupted time-series analysis, and the results of a multiple regression analysis that controls for some social variables. It appears that Bill C-51 may have had an impact on suicide rates, even after controls for social variables.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Understanding the declining Canadian homicide rate: a test of Holinger's relative cohort size hypothesis.

Homicide rates in Canada have shown a decline since 1975, but there has been little empirical study of this trend. P. Holinger (1987) predicted and confirmed that the size of the cohort aged 15-24 in the United States population was associated with the rise and fall of the homicide rate in that country. This study was designed to test this hypothesis in Canada. The results show, even if one controls for other socio-economic variables, the most significant prediction of the decline was, indeed, the proportion of the youth population.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Can suicide be a good death?

The issue of whether suicide can be a good death was separated into two different questions: (1) can suicide be an appropriate death, and (2) can suicide be a rational death? Several definitions of an "appropriate" death were proposed, and suicide was seen as potentially appropriate. Similarly, several criteria for rationality were proposed and suicide was seen as sometimes meeting these criteria. Thus, suicide can be sometimes conceptualized as a "good" death.

Attitude to Death↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Can suicide be a good death? A reply.

The commentaries by Feldman and Leenaars are less than persuasive, insofar as they are grounded in an arbitrary and potentially inappropriate advocacy of communal rather than individual values; in unproven assumptions about the constricted and illogical reasoning of suicidal persons; in an implicit equation of their acts with "sins"; and/or in a failure to recognize that the acceptance of suicide can sometimes be a compassionate response to intolerable "psychache." In contrast, I continue to assert that it is unfair to impose restrictions and moral judgments on death-choices when they are not imposed upon life-choices that also carry the risk of emotional harm to others.

Attitude to Death↗