Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides

suicide is illegal.

True. Law enforcement officers need to arrest more suicides and prosecutors need to pursue their conviction.

As convicted felons, suicides would lose their civil rights. Then they won't be allowed to own guns, which would make them less dangerous to everyone.

So if The Brady Campaign and The Violence Policy Center really and truly is interested in rational gun control they would campaign for Zero Tolerance for suicides. The BATFE could also sponsor a "Don't Die for the Other Guy" campaign.

Somebody please suggest it to them?

I like Mr. Angel S. I used to read his RKBA website quite a bit for the 'states news' across the USA.

I don't think that he still runs that website but the website is still going strong. (I could be wrong though!)

I think that he lives out here in Montana now too.

; . )

Catherine

I don't believe this suicide study. NO offense.

I have known people who did themselves in - 2 with guns. One man was dying, a friend of mine and he blew his brains out. Another man did this with a shotgun - it was in my former state... a Volunteer FD/EMT run by my late husband and others.

They had hangings, pills, x, y and z.

I knew of a woman who did it with an overdose... legal Rx drugs. Bad divorce and a wife of an old friend. She tried it 2 or 3 times... she ended up dying.

I think that you have more problems with an over medicated society (All ages!) than you do with gun suicides. I think that you have other methods of death as we all know which outnumber gun related deaths by far. You know the drill there - no sense in repeating myself.

If a person wants to DIE... they will find a way if they can't wait to die from old age, a horrible disease and/or some other 'problem'.

Catherine

suicide is illegal.

Click to expand...

And prisons are full of people who have committed suicide.

I think if you check, most states make attempted suicide a crime.

this is surprising how?

Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer (ATLANTA)

First time I got involved in gun politics, 1960s,
the gun suicide to murder to accidental death
ratio was 10 : 6 : 2.

This fact is surprising for what reason?
A journalist bothered to check the facts?

More than 90 percent of suicide attempts using guns are successful,
while the success rate for jumping from high places was 34 percent.
The success rate for drug overdose was 2 percent, the brief said, citing studies.

. . . . . .

Gary Kleck, a researcher at Florida State University's College of
Criminology and Criminal Justice, estimates there are more than 1 million
incidents each year in which firearms are used to prevent an actual or
threatened criminal attack.
Public-health experts have said the telephone survey methodology Kleck
used likely resulted in an overestimate.

So the balancing act is supposed to be number of suicides versus self-defense
lives saved by guns in homes? I think one would actually have to show an impact
of gun laws on reducing more suicides versus lives that would be saved by
self defense. And not just reducing suicide by gun. People intent on killing
themselves chose the deadliest means available, people intent on sending a
plea for help more than actually killing themselves choose less lethal means.
That would skew the statistics showing more successful shooting suicides and
fewer successful ODs.

If the potential gun suicides carry out their intent by other means, assuming
the gun laws were effective, then there is a net loss if the suicides occur by
other means and the gun laws thwart self-defense.

And the article does not mention that in reviews of studies on gun
control and crime, CDC 2003 and NAS 2004 showed no measurable benefit
from any of the gun control policies.

ASIDE:
Well, gee, the NSPOF survey designed by Kleck and conducted by Chiltons
in 1994 gave 23 million defensive gun uses, 27% by shooting, or 6.2 million
shooting DGUs in the write-up by Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig NIJ Research 1997.
And Kleck himself says the methodology may tend to exaggerate the more
dramatic DGUs. Kleck believes that 2.4 million DGU overall and 80,000 to
160,000 shooting DGUs (which give 3 to 7% shooting) are more reasonable
estimates. OK, 23 million (NSPOF 1994 survey) and 2.4 million (NSDS 1993 survey)
are "more than 1 million" so why quibble over exact numbers??

Wow and since I have been here in DC for the past 3 months I thought it was to jump off the Georgetown bridge. Guns are lethal wow who would have thought.
I think the Patomac River has killed more people since I have been here than guns.

All of the people who ate carrots in 1875 are now dead. Please, if you keep carrots in the house, be careful...

EVERYONE NEEDS TO DOWNLOAD AND READ GUNFACTS. It's free.
http://www.gunfacts.info

The book has lots (100?) of myths about guns and facts to refute it.

Everything from:
13 "children" die from guns each year. (The number includes children up to age 24. Children who are gangbangers involved in gang warfare.

to

Conceal Carry Laws Increase crime.

Download it, read it, use it. It's free.

I copied these charts from the ebook.




In the first chart there is no correlation between suicide and weapon ownership. Many countries w/ lower ownership rate have higher suicide.

The second chart we can see guns in circulation have gone up 200 million yet suicide rate is flat and gun homicide rate has fallen.

Someone who wants to commit suicide will. Guns have nothing to do with it.

Indeed, I guess we need to ban rope since people hang themselves...

I'm no anti either, Jack, but guns do not make suicide easier/more effective no matter what you say.

Click to expand...

Guns do not make the decision to commit suicide easier, but they do make the execution (no pun intended) easier and far more likely to be successful. I don't think this is a bad thing. If you're truly convinced that you and the world would be better off with you dead, then I think it should be your right to commit suicide.

If you've ever seen someone who committed suicide by hanging, you'd be convinced that a gun is the way to go.

What a list

We have to outlaw cutting implements for the wrist cutters, bridges for the people who deliberately crash into bridges, suicide by cop, (that means police officers are no longer permitted to shoot people who point guns at them if they might be suicidal, classes to identify them start next week), cars that emit exhaust fumes and hoses that carry the exhaust to the passenger cabin. Any pharmaceutical product that could cause death is hereby pulled from the market place, as well as peanuts, bee's and cirrhosis of the liver and any product that could possibly cause the condition, tobacco products are now out. This could go on all day. Can we pass a law forbidding people from jumping into bodies of water with the intention of drowning.

Think I will load up my gun and shoot some water filled plastic containers. Tickles my giggle and keeps me away from depression that might make me a law breaker.