"Spontaneous" Suicides; Supporting Anti-RKB w/ funny Stats

[wacki]

The whole "spontaneous urge to commit suicide" thing has been pushed a lot lately. From the WaPost:

Overwhelmingly, the research suggests suicide is usually an act of impulsive desperation ... Even the risk of terrorism doesn't begin to come close to the risk of suicide.

Via the NYT's article The Urge to End It All

“Sticking one’s head in the oven” became so common in Britain that by the late 1950s it accounted for some 2,500 suicides a year, almost half the nation’s total.

Those numbers began dropping over the next decade as the British government embarked on a program to phase out coal gas in favor of the much cleaner natural gas. By the early 1970s, the amount of carbon monoxide running through domestic gas lines had been reduced to nearly zero. During those same years, Britain’s national suicide rate dropped by nearly a third, and it has remained close to that reduced level ever since.

Suicide statistics from that SINGLE country seem to support the whole "spontaneous suicide" notion. Yet this article from Real Clear Politics doesn't focus on a single country:

A few decades ago, various European countries changed the type of natural gas used for home heating and cooking -- replacing a toxic form with a harmless variety. That step eliminated one time-tested way of killing oneself. Alas, while the number of gas suicides declined, in most of these countries, the death toll didn't.

uh oh..... The NYT's didn't tell us that!

The new york times article says:

Similarly, studies have shown that merely keeping a gun unloaded and storing its ammunition in a different room significantly reduces the odds of that gun being used in a suicide.

And then they go on talking about a woman that spontaneously bought a gun and shot herself in the head. Yet they never mention this CDC assessment report that says waiting periods don't reduce suicides.

and more from the far more balance RCP article:

The National Academy of Sciences report noted that any link between firearms and suicides "is not found in comparisons across countries." The number of guns in a nation tells you nothing about its suicide rate.

And when they talk about erecting bridge barriers to stop "spontaneous" jumpers they use a limited data set:

Except the opponents were wrong. A study conducted five years after the Ellington barrier went up showed that while suicides at the Ellington were eliminated completely, the rate at the Taft barely changed, inching up from 1.7 to 2 deaths per year. What’s more, over the same five-year span, the total number of jumping suicides in Washington had decreased by 50 percent, or the precise percentage the Ellington [bridge] once accounted for.

The data from one bridge and one state! Lets see that analysis done again on a much broader scale please.

I gotta admit, after reading numerous "spontaneous" suicide articles lately I was *beginning* to buy into the whole spontaneous suicide thing and started worrying about friends who might purchase a gun. And I'm a gun owner! Now, I can't help but think I've been duped.

 

[wacki]

Link to page 193 of the National Academy of Sciences study:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309091241&page=193

which says:

There also appears to be a cross-sectional association between rates of household gun ownership and overall rates of suicide, reported by investigators on both sides of the gun policy debate. However, the association is small, the findings seem to vary by age and gender, and results have been sensitive to model specifications, covariates, and measures used; furthermore, the association is not found in comparisons across countries.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Now, I can't help but think I've been duped.

Leftism is for people who either can't think for themselves or refuse to do so, as well as those who believe they're entitled to think for everyone.

 

[jrfoxx]

As I have said before, preventing suicides should not be a concern of the government, at any level. That is exclusively the domain of freinds and family who may to do so, IMHO, as I feel if someone wants to commit suicide, as long as they are not doing anything to put others at risk, they should be free to do it.If family and friends want to try to stop that person, fine, thats a family matter.It's not a matter for the government to be involved in at all, in my opinion.
The right to live is, IMHO, directly coupled with a right to commit suicide if you so choose.I have no issue with anyone trying to talk someone out of suicide, and have no issues with mental health treatment, suicide awareness programs, etc, but the government needs to NOT be banning or regulating ANYTHING to attempt to prevent suicides, as it wont work anyway, and is none of thier business.

YMMV

 

[Kind of Blued]

If holding a loaded gun in your hand makes you kill yourself...

...I don't even know where to go from there.

 

[mnrivrat]

Many people use creative statistics in attempts to give credibility to a non-credable conclusion.

It's easy to ignore certain parts of the data, or to manipulate the data by how it is gathered , to creat a false conclusion. All conclusions developed from statistical information needs to be reviewed for bias, and proper data collection. Without review, and unbiased perspective, statistics is just worthless junk.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I had a friend who committed suicide a number of years ago. And a former girlfriend made multiple attempts. There's nothing "spontaneous" about it. In the case of my friend, other friends had "intervened" when they felt he was depressed, and got him to check into a mental health facility (voluntarily) for a 10-day observation period. They sent him home after ten days, after which he fired up his pickup truck and parked it on a railroad track just before the daily Amtrak came through.

I guess if he'd been forced to keep the truck and the keys at separate addresses he couldn't have "spontaneously" used his truck to do himself in. Let's pass a law mandating that motor vehicles may not not be parked or garaged on the same premises where the keys are maintained. Just think of all the lives it'll save.

Remember, "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics."*

* "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is part of a phrase attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and popularized in the United States by Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." The semi-ironic statement refers to the persuasive power of numbers, and succinctly describes how even accurate statistics can be used to bolster inaccurate arguments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

 

[Lady with a Gun]

I don't believe suicide is a spur of the moment thing. It is usually the result of long term despair and loss of hope.

 

[RandyB]

As a mental health counselor who has worked with numerous sucidal patients. Suicide is like any other human act, it depends on the person and on the situation/ Some suicides are obviously well thought out and planned. These folks maybe protesting something (like Thích Quảng Ðức, the Buddist who protested the Vietnam war), or Budd Dwyer who sucided while in office to provide income for his family. Spontaneous suicides happen as well, I'm sure that a lot of the jumpers in the WTC during 9-11 didn't plan on dying that day. Blaming guns as an ease of access to folks who impulsively kill themselves, misses the point. If they are that suicidal, they will find another means. MVA's (driving into bridges/trees at high speed), jumping, hanging, OD, walking into traffic/trains are all 'impulsive' quick means for sucidal folks.

 

[marktx]

Who needs a gun?

Man cuts off own head with chainsaw after flat is earmarked to be bulldozed by developers

 

[boatbod]

How the heck did he manage that? Weird.

 

[Robert Hairless]

There may be some truth in spontaneous reactions to inanimate objects. I have a couple of friends with good digestion who throw up after reading The New-York Times. That's 100% of the sampling, a statistic that can't be ignored.