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I am a psychologist and to be honest, I think focusing on methods is well-intended but misguided because it leaves the pain but takes away the mechanism. I'm n
by o203909kd 8y ago
I am a psychologist and to be honest, I think focusing on methods is well-intended but misguided because it leaves the pain but takes away the mechanism.
I'm not convinced that even eliminating firearms completely would reduce suicide rates as much as some think because people would find another means. Even the linked piece states "nobody knows what would happen if firearm availability in the US resembled levels of other developed countries." In countries where firearms aren't as available, other methods are more prevalent. I also think there's a lot of differences between the US and other developed countries along a lot of dimensions other than firearm use.
Even if it did reduce suicides, though, what does that leave people with? It's akin to saying "we're going to take away this only out for your pain without addressing your problems."
Sure, keeping them alive long enough might allow you to intervene and reduce their pain, but the fact that they are driven to suicide to begin with suggests something failed earlier along the chain.
What we want are people who don't feel driven to suicide, not people who are unable to commit suicide.
- minikites 8y ago>What we want are people who don't feel driven to suicide, not people who are unable to commit suicide. Is there a reason we shouldn't do both?
- DanBC 8y ago> I am a psychologist and to be honest, I think focusing on methods is well-intended but misguided because it leaves the pain but takes away the mechanism. I work in suicide prevention in a country that has seen decreasing rates of suicide at a time when the government has been defunding mental health care. Reducing access to means and methods of suicide is the most important thing we can do to stop people killing themselves. Barriers on bridges and multi-storey carparsk save lives. Smaller pack sizes of paracetamol prevents death. Gun control would absolutely save lives. We've had a wide range of natural experiments for this. Two notable examples are when the UK changed the domestic gas supply from coal gas to natural gas; and when the UK introduced laws for catalytic converters. Two very common methods went, and rates declined for some years after. Of course you need the bio-psycho-social support too, but method removal is crucial.