Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides

[mbt2001]

I wonder what bearing this has on the argument?? So people prefer suicide to be relatively easy... OK. Should we make it more difficult for them or do they have the right to do it that way? I would think that in this day and age it wouldn't mean much, as most people believe that a patient has the right to die.

Liberals are all about a patients right to die and assisted suicide and all that, so wth difference does it make?

Also, gun suicide people will invariably just increase some other indicies, like drunk driving or train accidents or bridge jumpers or or or... if they were somehow disallowed from using firearms.

Also, the most important fact.

300,000,000 (US population approx.)
30,000 (est. firearms deaths)

0.0001% of US society are killed (or kill themselves) with guns...

Not exactly the end of the world. Not to sound harsh.

 

[3KillerBs]

plenty of reasons to live (like ice-cream and puppies!).

And the internet.

If isolation and boredom have any affect on suicide then the internet should have a significant preventative effect among users.

It relieves feelings of isolation and lack of fellowship because there is no interest so esoteric that one cannot find a chatroom, forum, or mailing group full of potential companions sharing the same interest.

It relieves boredom by offering boundless opportunities to discover new things. Just last week the pursuit of some information about sewing techniques that I intend to use in the construction of a concealed-carry-friendly wardrobe led me via sewing blogs, steampunk art, and fabric striped in pink and black to a fascinating website with goth etiquette advice and useful information about rejuvenating water-spotted velvet. LOL

 

[rainbowbob]

Your Hairlessness:

You've got some very smart neighbors. Is it something in the water?

 

[TallPine]

Another incident ... I was talking to my dad a few weeks ago, and he told me that a guy in his small Texas town jumped in front of a train.

I imagine that was at least as deadly as a cerebral firearm wound and rather more messy

 

[Rudy Kohn]

This article got posted in the Daily Texan, our local university paper.

I posted a comment online:

Suicide Rate Higher in Japan
Rudy Kohn, Physics graduate student.

Despite having virtually no guns in legal ownership in their society, the Japanese suicide rate is nearly twice that of the United States, according to World Health Organization statistics.

Sounds to me like the news media is extremely interested in making firearm ownership look bad in the wake of the very positive Supreme Court decision.
Especially since this article tries to draw some kind of link between suicide and the unconstitutionality of the DC ban--tenuous almost to the point of being a non-sequitur.

An additional point is that I suspect that the ones committing suicide are not wholly the gun owners themselves; rather, the guns are used by depressed family members who are able to access the firearm. The title of the article suggests that I, as a gun owner, am more likely to be suicidal than the average person, which is probably bunk--but, even if it isn't, the misuse by some people of firearms is no reason to punish the law-abiding in general, which is basically what the DC ban did. Criminals still had guns, just as they do in countries where total gun bans are in place.

The study showing guns in the home result in increased danger is not cited, but it's probably the same old Kellerman study that has been shown to be flawed in many ways, such as counting any gun in the house, including guns brought by home invaders.

FBI crime statistics show that the time around 1976 was a time of unusually high murder rates throughout the nation, if I remember correctly. The law was passed as the murder rate returned to its former level. The ratio of the DC murder rate to the US murder rate stuck pretty steady around 3. A CDC study has looked at gun control laws around the world and concluded that there is no statistical evidence that such laws have a significant effect on crime. Statistical studies by John Lott, with results confirmed by independent analysis by many other academics, show that armed self-defense has a strong criminal deterrence effect. Cherry-picking your studies doesn't help your argument.

The spread of right-to-carry has been followed almost universally by significant decreases in violent crime. Places with the most stringent gun control are frequently cesspools of violent crime. Law-abiding citizens are left helpless against illegally-armed criminals, and the police have no legal obligation to protect you (see Castle Rock v. Gonzales or a couple dozen other cases), though they generally try very hard to do so.

I'd welcome any thoughts or criticism.

 

[22-rimfire]

I definitely agree that use of a firearm for sucide should be eliminated from the normally reported statistics. However, the objective of the anti-gun movement is to use any ammunition they have to demonstrate that guns are evil and should not be in the hands of private citizens.

As far as I'm concerned, it is all about personal responsibility.

I noticed in a recent article that folks are going inside national parks to commit sucide. Guess they want a pretty place for their carcass to rot up in if the body is not found. Think Green Folks!!

 

[Robert Hairless]

You've got some very smart neighbors. Is it something in the water?

Nah, turned out that the last guy who jumped in the reservoir shouting "I'm committing suicide!" later confessed that he was only trying to dodge an NRA mailing. "Too many! Too many!" he said. "I would have joined the NRA but when they asked me to do it I snapped!"

So we fished him out, dried him off, and sent him on his way. We heard he eventually joined The Brady Campaign. May he do them as much good as he has done us. Let them worry about him.

Some of my neighbors did complain that the water left a bad taste in their mouths for a while after that. I'm too insensitive to notice such things, or care.

 

[Diggers]

Interesting topic....more for how it gets people going then for what it’s about.

I think it is common sense to say that using a gun is going to be a more effective way to kill ones self and perhaps the easiest. Suicides often seem to be prevented due to the time it takes to do ones self in using other methods or because (as has been said) people really have no idea how many pills they need to take or jumping out the second story window probably isn't going to do it. But there really isn't info on how many of those people really wanted to kill themselves VS. A "cry for help".

Guns are a more effective method for suicide. That is just a logical point of view.

Interestingly it was not mentioned that guns are NOT the most effective way
to commit suicide. Jumping off at very tall building or bridge has almost a zero percent survival rate.....much lower than using guns.


Any how, the numbers can always be tweaked in one way or another. Who knows how true the stats are on this for guns.

For that matter who knows how many of the deaths in car accidents a year are suicide?

Or worse yet what about all the non-suicide accidental deaths related to alcohol, which are of course much higher then suicides each year.

The disconnect here is that some one is trying to indicate guns and gun ownership are to blame for suicides.

Two totally different issues. One has nothing to do with the other. There are so many other factors involved in that action.

Honestly I feel there are a lot bigger fish to fry out there then this, cold as that may be.

If someone wants to worry about people dying before their time and take it on as cause, how about car crashes? Or alcohol related accidental deaths?

Just seems to me that those issues should be higher up on the list

 

[mkonops]

To be honest, I think the liberal concern with suicide is nothing more than a tool used against our freedoms. After a long and heated debate with a lefty I know about universal health care, he let slip that euthanasia would be a reasonable alternative to the way we "keep people alive long past a useful point" ... "wasting time and money on people who are going to die anyway." I found that to be appalling, and I don't want to thread drift but it came to mind when reading about these suicide "statistics." I highly doubt these people are actually concerned with suicide cases, considering their views on abortion and euthanasia confirm the value they put on human life, but would employ anything they can think of to ensure we cannot defend or take care of ourselves - instead of letting the government do it for us.

As far as the article itself is concerned, I think this pretty much sums up the reason for these statistics:

Guns increase the likelihood a suicide attempt will be successful by a very heavy margin relative to the most common methods of suicide by unarmed people.

 

[MD_Willington]

Hmmm, in that case, condoms cause teen pregnancy, and spoons make people fat.

 

[NukemJim]

From THR's own John Ross (someone who is far more eloquent than I) the following may be of interest to those who argue about statistics. Sorry about the formatting it is from his archives.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070115025334/www.john-ross.net/mistakes.htm

Mistakes We Make in the Gun Culture, or
How to Be a More Effective Advocate for Freedom 9/14/05

THEY SAY: �If we pass this License-To-Carry law, it will be like the Wild West, with shootouts all the time for fender-benders, in bars, etc. We need to keep guns off the streets. If doing so saves just one life, it will be worth it.� Or in this case lower suicide rate *



WE SAY: �Studies have shown blah blah blah� (FLAW: You have implied that if studies showed License-To-Carry laws equaled more heat-of-passion shootings, Right-To-Carry should be illegal.) Or in this case suicide*



WE SHOULD SAY: �Although no state has experienced what you are describing, that�s not important. What is important is our freedom. If saving lives is more important than the Constitution, why don�t we throw out the Fifth Amendment? We have the technology to administer an annual truth serum session to the entire population. We�d catch the criminals and mistaken arrest would be a thing of the past. How does that sound?�

*The words in italics are added by NukemJim

We are getting distracted from the real issues. I suggest reading his posting on this subject, he expresses himself far better than I do.

NukemJim

 

[pyle]

Want to know what is really disturbing? When the anti's do a study about gun violence - they usually hide suicides in the study under "gun related deaths" to make their numbers look better for them.

 

[macadore]

how do you fail to kill yourself with a gun???

You miss.

 

[thebaldguy]

I think it's interesting that they are trying to blame guns for suicides. I think that firearms are just a tool for suicides. There are many countries in the world that have higher suicide rates than the USA, and they have less access to firearms.

If people were really interested in preventing suicides, I'm guessing there are better solutions than banning firearms.

 

[gym]

Well lets look at it this way, if someone got to the point of wanting to kill themselves, they would possibly go about the next step, which would be, how to go about it. Now assuming there are x amount of guns out there, the person in the home who decided to take their life, would seek the most effective way to do so, "I guess", so now they have to take stock of their options. When they have a gun in the home, it must cross their mind that using the gun would be the quickest, most certain and effieient way of doing the job. Pills are iffy, anything with jumping can get screwed by an awning or a tree or some other variable, ropes break, etc. So when the gun gets chosen, it's through an intelligent sequence of choosing the right tool for the job. Maybe if they took a survey of all suicides and compared them to the percent of the populace that had access to a gun, they would find that the figures were in proportion. So if someone who had a gun, wanted to kill themselves it would be obvious that they already had the most efficiant means to do so. But that dosen't mean that having a gun leads to a propensity for suicide. Just my 2 cents, You can always get the glove to fit, unless you are OJ

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

One public-health study found that suicide and homicide rates in the district dropped after the ban was adopted. The district has allowed shotguns and rifles to be kept in homes if they are registered, kept unloaded and taken apart or equipped with trigger locks.

Good clue that the study is BS. Unless you reach the conclusion that they would have killed themselves with a handgun if it were available; but found loading a long gun to be too much trouble.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

One public-health study found that suicide and homicide rates in the district dropped after the ban was adopted.

Was that the one performed by the Sesame Street puppets? And I just had an acquaintance of mine about a week ago kill himself (he was mentally ill) by getting into the bathtub with a circular saw and then throwing himself, torso first, onto it. Girlfriend found him. Bled out slowly - big mess. So people will find a way. If they want out that badly, I say more power to them - the guns are making it easier for them, and thus doing them a service.

 

[RP88]

hey guys, I just read this really neat causation fact: you are substantially more likely to take a s--t in a toilet if you sit on one.

Someone think up a good political analysis for that.

 

[george29]

A person wants to die, he will find a way.

 

[RioShooter]

If you look at the suicide rates in other countries, it's obvious there is not a relationship between gun ownership and suicide.

Japan has twice the suicide rate as the US, but it has very strict gun control. England has less than half the US rate, and also strict control.

Israel and Switzerland have very low suicide rates, but they have a very high gun ownership rate.

So what does gun ownership have to do with suicide? NOTHING!!!! :banghead:

 

[Sir Aardvark]

Statistics - you gotta love 'em!

On the surface this looks really bad, because it makes it look like people with firearms are more likely to die by firearms.

But... The obvious fallacy here is that those who wish to commit suicide are generally pretty determined to die, usually by whatever means are available.

Furthermore, I recall reading somewhere that those who commit suicide by firearms are actually very determined to succeed - none of this pansie-like, fake 'wrist-slashing' 'just to seek attention' stuff with this group!

If I remember my numbers correctly, about 98% of suicide attempts by firearms are successful.
Also mentioned was the fact that more males commit suicide by firearms than females.
Suicide by firearm tends to leave little to chance - Taking pills, hanging, carbon monoxide, slashing wrists, etc. are not always effective and can in fact leave you impaired or in a near vegetable state with variable states of brain damage.

 

[3KillerBs]

Maybe if they took a survey of all suicides and compared them to the percent of the populace that had access to a gun, they would find that the figures were in proportion.

But again, due to variable lethality, you would have to compare suicide attempts rather than successes in order to get truly meaningful data.

 

[rocinante]

Of the homicides are there any statistics dividing it up between what I would call spontaneous passion versus impersonal crime? legal possession versus illegal?

 

[TAB]

We know that gun shops let people look at and handle guns. Has anyone heard of a customer of a gun shop loading a revolver IN THE SHOP and killing themselves?

yes, it happend at a hard ware store about 20 miles from where I live now when I was akid. guy stole a 44 mag round from off the shelf and asked to see a 44 in the display case. loaded it, put the barrel in his mouth and killed himself. They stoped selling guns that day.

 

[leadcounsel]

I think there are 2 categories of the suicidal and less guns would have minimal impact on the suicide rate.

1) Those that want attention. These are the pill poppers or those that lightly scratch their arms in a cry for help;

2) Those that want to die. These are the tormented Kurt Cobanes of the world. Take away Kurt Cobanes shotgun and maybe he jumps off a building and kills a pedestrian, or drives head on into traffic and kills a famiy of 4. People that want to die will find a way, guns or no-guns. Outlawing guns will have minimal impact on the suicide rate.


Look at Japan's anti-gun laws and their high suicide rate for instance. If someone wants to off himself, he'll find a way.